Pulling Mussels
by SekritOMG
Summary: When Craig moves back to South Park following a bad breakup, he intends on living a life of solitude. He should have expected that South Park, and its residents, have a way of dragging you back in.
1. Chapter 1

Thanks to Nhaingen for beta-reading!

* * *

><p>The day after it was announced that the old Judson Pastures meat packing plant was being converted into luxury loft units, Craig Tucker called a real estate agent. He was 27 then and feeling lost, having just moved back from Denver after a nasty breakup with his college boyfriend, if by "college boyfriend" you meant "college advisor" and by "breakup" you meant that the illustrious Neville MacAllister St. John, the Dudley and Clarice Kimball-Foster Professor of Performance Studies, had walked in on Craig administering one of his satisfying and highly sought-after blow jobs to the guy from whom Craig bought wholesale lighting fixtures. Fortunately for Craig, the blow of his betrayal was softened by the fact that he could still inform DU that Professor St. John's academic conduct had not always been of the highest integrity, nor were his transgressions limited to fucking undergraduates. So, single but not heartbroken, Craig limped back to his parents' house with $250,000 palimony and the tattered remains of his interior design business.<p>

The best thing about buying a new condo, Craig knew, was that he would be able to negotiate the customization of his unit. After paying in cash, he was able to upgrade to stainless steel appliances, go darker on the marble countertops, put subway tiles in the half-bath, paint the guest bedroom mauve at no extra charge, and remove that stupid dividing wall between the living and dining rooms. Nobody had separate rooms anymore; it was so passé. "You're buying a condo in _South Park_?" Neville asked, when Craig called to inform him of how his alimony would be spent. "My dear, isn't _that_ passé?"

"It's a cool old building," said Craig. "We used to take field trips there in grade school. Plus, I can customize it. I can finally get one of those electronic Japanese toilets you wouldn't let me have."

"Those things are death traps just waiting to happen."

"Yeah? Well I'm not really a top."

"Not to be cruel, darling, but I could always tell."

Craig slammed down the phone and those were the final words they ever exchanged.

The glory of the condo was that Craig could easily run his design business out of it. With his bedroom in the actual loft he could meet with clients surrounded by the evidence of his coveted aesthetics. Not afraid to get his hands dirty, he built his own dining room table out of local pine and finished it with ebony Minwax. He bought garbage chairs from the Salvation Army and re-upholstered them in supple mustard leather. He sewed his own curtains, was his own electrician, and found a way to integrate barbed wire into the pendant light hanging over his foyer. "Slaughterhouse chic," his mother called the look, but she was an idiot. Craig thought of it as "midcentury bondage."

His business did not quite recover from the move, in the sense that he no longer had scores of clients. Yet his rarefied regulars were willing to pay more, and as their Cherry Creek McMansions garnered spreads in the local periodicals, Craig began to charge more. He had long ago mastered the art of living well at a discount. Someday soon his grandmother would die and he would inherit her grand piano. Craig had been dreaming about that piano since he was a boy. He couldn't play piano, of course, but he had visions of guests serving themselves canapés from the piano's surface at one of Craig's delightful and highly refined brunches. Also, he was very eager to hire a naked young gentleman to play the piano during one his meticulously planned orgies. Craig turned 28 and his grandma developed pancreatic cancer. It was a slow-growing variety, but Craig began to rearrange his hot house flowers to make room in the corner by the breakfast bar. It was a big year for Craig. He declined to go to his 10-year high school reunion, choosing instead to go to a yoga workshop at an ashram in the Catskills. He came back the same weight he had been the morning of his high school graduation. It pleased him. That was the one true downside to missing the reunion; he would never learn how fat all of his former classmates had gotten. He assumed they had all gotten very fat. Anyway, he had not seen any of them since then, and had done well enough avoiding people he knew in South Park altogether. Craig found that satisfying.

By the time he reached age 30 Craig's grandmother had given Craig's mother durable power of attorney and signed a DNR. Craig again rearranged his exotic flowers and began mentally planning his orgy. It would be invitation-only, of course, all of the guests wearing the finest Venetian masks. It was difficult to sink into this fantasy, though, when Craig had not had sex with anyone, or even so much as kissed a man, for three years now. He began thinking about putting the moves on some of his clients. It would be quite a risk, because that sort of thing had the potential to backfire exponentially. Still, he settled on a couple he knew, a pair of wealthy bears, both of whom were named Dave. Craig scheduled their next consultation at 8:30 p.m. He put a bottle of Billetcart-Samon on ice and set out chocolate-covered strawberries alongside a baguette from the best bakery in Denver and an ounce of foie gras.

"I hope you like smooth jazz," Craig said to the Daves, slinking over from the kitchen. He had foregone his usual work attire in favor of tight jeans and a black button-down. He had an industrial-sized bucket of lube in the master bathroom, just in case. Then he proceeded to very slowly light a series of candles.

"Anyone need a refill?" Craig lifted the bottle from the ice bucket and stroked its neck with suggestive gusto.

"Where did you get that barbed wire installation in the foyer?" one of the Daves asked. This one was slightly fatter. Craig made a mental note.

"I didn't get it anywhere, I designed it."

"Wow, it's fabulous. Where did you get such an idea?"

"Well, I walked by a fence with some barbed wire on it." Craig topped off his champagne flute, aware that they were both staring at him, "and I thought, it's genius."

"Yes, genius!" cried the less fat Dave. This one had a voice like a breathy schoolgirl. "Is that pate?"

"It's foie gras."

"So divine!" fatter Dave exalted.

They left Craig with a $10,000 contract to redesign the wet bar area in their fetish room, ostensibly with some kind of barbed wire motif. Somewhat richer but no less horny, Craig carefully washed out his ice bucket and champagne flutes, the remnants of the erection that almost was wilting in his pants. Craig ate the leftover foie gras with a fork. It was a shameful evening for him, so he washed it down with the end of the Billetcart-Salmon. Feeling pretty good about that decision, he scrubbed his face and climbed into bed.

In the dark of his apartment, with the pale moonlight filtering through the bare, 20-foot leaded glass windows, Craig stared into space. For the first time, Craig missed Neville. Maybe he missed being asked for his opinion on the manuscript for Neville's forthcoming study on Indonesian shadow puppets. Mostly Craig just missed having a slightly overweight man to snore loudly in bed with him. Well, what he _really_ missed was the opportunity to hit a slightly overweight man to make him stop snoring. Craig sat in bed drinking the end of his leftover champagne and beating off to mental notes about the Daves. After he'd come he realized something: those Daves were totally not attractive, or even his types. Sure, they had _money_, were the joint CEOs of a local on-demand pizza-delivery service app or something. But surely they weren't into Craig, with his waspish figure and inauspiciously plucked brows. And wasn't that what Craig really wanted? To be adored by someone? "Wait a minute," he said to himself, aloud. "I'm drunk." Craig got up and put on his moisturizer, did his 50 sit-ups, and drunkenly spilled some mouthwash on his subway-tiled bathroom floor. He mopped it up with a rag and went to sleep.

In the morning Craig took two Advil gels with a large glass of water and used his leftover baguette to make _pan con tomate_. He served this to himself with a poached egg and a side of baby arugula from the Park Country farmers market. He smashed an orange into the reamer of his electric juicer and made himself a mimosa. He stood at the head of his black dining room table, the one he'd built himself, and looked down on the picture-perfection of his simple breakfast.

"Jesus Christ," he said, to no one. "I'm really lonely."

* * *

><p>On Monday morning Craig got started with the fat Daves' barbed wire project. He sourced all of his barbed wire from Jimbo's Guns, a store that was not quite in the center of town, but a couple of blocks over from the main strip. It was down the street from the mall, where Craig steadfastly never shopped. They had crazy prices on barbed wire, of course. No one knew the value of anything out here in the sticks. Craig had not actually been in Jimbo's Guns since he'd decorated his own apartment, and considered whether he might not get the same order by phoning it in. He began grinding coffee to make himself breakfast, but stopped. Maybe he should go into town. Maybe he could get his coffee from … whenever there was to get coffee in South Park. His childhood friend's parents owned a coffee roastery, and there was a chain, a Harbucks or whatever. Maybe he should go over to Tweak Bros. and get some coffee there, then walk over to Jimbo's Guns and buy the barbed wire. Something about this idea felt very <em>continental<em>, like he lived in a remote part of France where he'd have to bike down a cobblestoned lane to visit the butcher, the bakery, the bookshop, and the green market. The people who lived in those villages were illiterate hicks anyway, he told himself. South Park, south of France, what was the difference? Craig went to go slip on his shoes.

There were no sidewalks in greater South Park, so Craig walked along the side of the road. The place was more suburban than it had been when he was growing up, the sprawl of Denver's outskirts bringing mini-malls and, of course, forcing the conversion of meat-packing plants into condos. Well, Craig figured, this was life. Gentrification. He would have liked to have seen the county put in some pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. It was irresponsible from a design standpoint. Also a financial standpoint, because if someone ran him over he would most certainly sue. Fortunately, no one ran him over, and he made it to Tweak Bros. alive and in one piece.

There was no line, though the shop had several people in it, mostly losers working on laptops, sipping from paper cups. Craig hunched over to stare into the pastry case for a moment, but the sight of grease soaking the doilies under the croissants reminded him that he was not hungry, and this place was essentially disgusting. Craig had frequented this shop in middle and high school, the beneficiary of numerous pre-punched buy-10 free-coffee cards offered by his friend Tweek. At the time, Craig supposed, this being the only real place in town to get a coffee, that he had in fact been burnishing his cachet by hanging out there.

He stepped up to the register: "I'll take a cortado. Cut it with soy."

"Oh, shit!" the man working the register cried. "Well, hello to you too!"

"Oh." Craig was too shaken to feel awkward, though it figured that Tweek would, in fact, still be working at his parents' shop if he was actually working anywhere. "Hey."

"Where did you even come from? I feel like I've seen a ghost!"

"I'm not a ghost," said Craig. "I just want a cortado. With soy milk."

"We don't have a cortado!"

"Okay."

"Or soy milk!"

"Wow." Now there was a line forming behind Craig. He sighed. "How are you?"

"I'm — oh, jesus! I'm fine!" He looked … yes, _fine_, Craig figured. For Tweek. His wild, staticky hair was close-cropped now, but he still had the sallow-cheeked look of his youth. He wore a green sweater that hung on him a bit wanly, and Craig couldn't see what kind of pants he was wearing. There on his chest was a nameplate that said "Tweek," which was needlessly redundant. Craig was likely the only person in this town who apparently did not know Tweek on sight.

"That's good to hear," said Craig. "You said you _don't_ carry soy milk?"

"We have four percent creamline milk —you know, Denkins is into dairy now. It's really good! Very local!"

Craig stood there for a moment, waiting for Tweek to follow this up with—anything, really. "Well?" he asked finally.

"Well what?" Tweek asked. "I got customers, man! What do you want?"

"Oh." Craig stepped aside. He needed to think. "Come back to me," he said.

After the line had cleared away, Tweek turned back to Craig. "Now I have to make all these drinks!"

"It must be a lot of pressure," said Craig.

"It's my job!" There was still a kind of urgency to all of Tweek's utterances; Craig saw everything that came out of Tweek's mouth with an exclamation point at the end. Yet he groaned as he made up the orders, which weren't complicated, a drip coffee ("Tweek Bros. Mountain Town Blend") with room for cream and an iced caramel latte frappe. It had no fancy name, which Craig found charming, and he stood there for a moment while Tweek wiped off the countertop around the blender and called out, "Frappe! Caramel frappe for Juan! Juan! Juan! Wah — oh." And Tweek handed Juan the drink and said, "Take it easy, man!"

Bells on the door jangled as Juan left, and Tweek turned back to Craig. "Seriously, man! Where did you come from!"

"From my apartment," Craig replied. "They paved over Platte Vista but they didn't put in a sidewalk."

"Yeah," said Tweek. "No one here walks!"

"Well, how else was I supposed to get here? There's no bus."

"I mean where did you come from! I haven't seen you in 10 years!"

"It's 12," said Craig. "It's been 12 years. Since graduation."

"What are you doing back? Is your — oh jesus! Did your grandma die?"

"No." Craig sighed. "Not yet. I moved back. Do you seriously not make a cortado?"

"Man, I dunno what that is!"

"It's like a Spanish macchiato." Craig paused. He waited for Tweek to say anything, but Tweek merely boggled. "Espresso with milk."

"Oh!" Tweek began to rub his chin, like this was a daunting task and a big deal. "I can put milk in espresso!"

"That's okay," said Craig. "Just give me a black coffee."

The coffee was okay, which Craig chalked up to his horribly low expectations. It wasn't quite bilge, which surprised him.

Craig must have been making some kind of not-disgusted face, for Tweek leaned over the counter and said, "We should hang out sometime!"

"Uh." For a moment, the right words eluded Craig. A polite person would say "Sure, call me" or "I'd love to, but," and then follow it up with at least a half-assed excuse. Craig stumbled into a neutral, "Thanks for the coffee." Then he left.

Walking up the road to the gun shop, Craig realized he had forgotten to tip.

* * *

><p>Working the counter at the gun shop was Jimbo himself, a paunchy older man in bulky hunting gear. With Jimbo came, for Craig, the awkward realization that throughout his childhood gay men had been hiding in plain sight all over town. They had a brief conversation that bordered on flirtatious, while Jimbo lounged on the counter and tried to sell Craig a gun. He luxuriated in the fabric of Jimbo's little tells: the extended wink, the tension in his hands, the way his shirt was opened to the third button, objectionable only in the sense that he wore a vest as well, for warmth surely as well as convenience, the pockets groaning with ammo. Pointless, but obvious to Craig. This was one of his old classmates' fathers? No, uncle. Stan Marsh's uncle. Kind of an eccentric figure around town. But, unfortunately, they all were.<p>

Craig wondered if he could work his charms toward a small discount. "No gun for me, thanks," he said, "just the barbed wire."

"You securing your property against home invaders?"

"No," said Craig, almost disappointed that he wanted to. "I'm making artwork. Kind of. … I have a condo." He finished the end of his coffee and searched the plain-wood floor for a trash can, finding nothing. "Could you take this for me?"

"There's a dumpster out back." Jimbo pulled off his hat and dug into a drawer for an order form. "We don't take cards," he said, the sigh of disillusionment in his words. "Cash or money order."

"I've paid with a check before."

"Check's fine," Jimbo agreed, writing out the order. Barbed wire was priced per yard, a relative steal, even without a discount. Craig imagined himself seducing this weird older man, begging for his dick out back beside the dumpster, coffee cup tipped over on the counter near the order form. A signet ring flashed on Jimbo's right hand, on the ring finger; how pathetically gay was that? Feeling nauseated with uncomfortable possibility, Craig walked home along the side of Platte Vista thirsty for a cortado, which he promised he'd make himself. He drank it on his balcony, much bothered by the way a "for sale" placard slammed in the wind against the railing of the apartment next door. Craig wondered if someone lived there, or if it hadn't sold yet.

He missed Denver, and worried fitfully for a week that he would end up like everyone else in this town, a gun-peddling eccentric.

* * *

><p>All of Craig's feelings of impending doom bore out in due time, in the form of a phone call from his high school best friend. When thinking this to himself Craig labored to put the "best friend" part in quote marks, pausing before and after the phrase. He hadn't seen or spoke to Clyde Donovan in 10 years, but as soon as he answered the call and heard the nasal "Craig!" on the other end of the line, he knew this was Tweek's fault. Tweek, the weak link of his childhood, a wraith haunting the social interactions he endured with the rest of their small graduating class.<p>

"He said you're back in town," Clyde moaned, like Craig's presence or absence was a personal fault of Clyde's own. "But that's insane because you wouldn't come back to town three years ago and never call me."

"Why would I call you?" Craig asked. "I haven't spoken to you since I was 18."

"That's not true! You sent me a Facebook message. For my birthday, sophomore year of college."

"I don't mean to be a dick but that doesn't sound like something I'd do."

"Well, I messaged you first," said Clyde, "to tell you you forgot my birthday."

Craig slumped on the couch. How to rid himself of this? "You're right, that does sound like — something that happened."

"So when are we getting together?"

"Um." Craig stared across the apartment at his nest of barbed wire.

"There's a bar, Skeeter's."

"I know."

"Well, you should come get a drink!"

"Why, Clyde? Why should I do that?"

"Why shouldn't you?"

All Craig could think of in answer was, "I don't want to," but that seemed too cruel. It had been a while, but certain things about Clyde were unlikely to have changed. He was emotionally volatile from a young age, predating the death of his mother when he was 9. It seemed to Craig that in some ways, continuing to feel bad for Clyde because he lost his mother _20 years ago_ or more was foolish; Craig himself was a man who moved past pain, beyond it, toward the next thing all the time.

Clyde's voice was heavy with grief even when he was just trying to make casual plans.

"Okay," said Craig. "I suppose that's fine."

His first question, as Clyde hugged him in from of Skeeter's miserable bar, was, "How did you get my number?"

"I asked your mother."

"Ah." It was cool out, and yet Clyde's body was warm. Perhaps this was because he was very large. Chubby in middle and high school, now he was just fat; that was really the only word for it. Craig had always found him cute, but then, his tastes in high school ran to "curated," and the lack of planning in any of Clyde's decisions was something of a turn-off. They'd lived next door growing up, and Clyde was always there; in fact, Craig had probably spent more time with him than anyone until they went to college. The other thing about Clyde was that he was just as into guys as Craig was, though he sometimes (perhaps by virtue of his role on the high school hockey team, as a goalie) dated girls. "Just to make sure," he said. He claimed to have never slept with them. As high school went on Craig started to suspect that their association lingered because of this commonality, rather than in spite of it. The only other openly gay kids in their year were in a weirdly public relationship and also Craig couldn't stand either of them. _They_ happened to live next door to each other as well, and while the similarities between Craig and Clyde and Stan and Kyle ended there, the circumstances were too close for comfort. No wonder Craig had stopped talking to Clyde after graduation.

While they waited for the beers they'd ordered from the balding bartender, Clyde gushed about how he'd finished at Park County Community College and then gone to Wyoming for two years, to graduate.

"What a grim place to be in school," Craig said. He hadn't realized Clyde had paid, and was fruitlessly holding his wallet in one hand and the beer in the other. "I mean, even if you're not gay."

"What do you mean?" Clyde still had the cuteness of his youth in his soft face; his father was a kind of doughy recluse, his late mother genuinely pretty. Clyde himself had been voted the cutest boy in their third-grade class. Fourth grade? Craig grinned at the memory of Kyle Broflovski having been voted the ugliest. "Why are you smiling?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I'm happy to see you, too."

They sat down in a booth, and Clyde launched into an overly self-conscious elevator speech about the fact that he worked at — ran, owned, managed — his father's old shoe store, in the mall. "It's such a stereotypical thing to do," he said, "I find it somewhat shameful."

"Well, guess what? I'm an interior designer."

Without leaning over to offer the following information in a conspiratorial whisper, Clyde folded his hands together and said, "I'm in the closet."

"Oh," said Craig. "That's too bad."

"Yeah, it's nothing I'm proud of."

"Do you think women don't want to buy shoes from a gay man? Because if so I have good news for you."

"Nah — no, nothing like that," said Clyde. "It's just not something I ever felt like doing. Telling people, I mean."

"Well, Clyde, it's obvious to me. I don't know what else to tell you. Sorry." Craig took a sip of his beer. He swallowed. "The beer at this bar is terrible."

"I'm not pretending. I don't date girls. Not since high school." Clyde was doing this thing with his mouth where he screwed it up and wiggled his lower lip. It was self-conscious and, Craig figured, probably subconscious. Clyde sipped from his disgusting beer with the kind of trepidation that characterized one's teenage drinking. It was almost as if Clyde were drinking his first beer, though it was obvious from his bulk that he had been drinking too much for a while, the past decade. Beer and spit lingered on his plump bottom lip after he swallowed, and he wiped at it with his stubby fingers, scowling. "I was never trying to hide it. Not from you or from anyone. And I honestly wasn't thinking about there being _other_ guys who were like that."

"Well, there were, you know. You knew I was. And Stan and Kyle?"

"They were on another level, or something. And you didn't count. There just never seemed to be, like, an opening for it. I just didn't know what to do."

"You could stop putting the energy you're putting into being closeted into something else, like exercise."

This comment clearly hit a nerve, as Clyde wrapped his coat around his middle and slumped.

"I mean—" Now Craig felt a little bit. Clyde was like a wound oozing pus, a giant throbbing infected appendage. He didn't want to _hurt_ Clyde, but jesus, how was he going to deal with this guy if he didn't touch him a little? Metaphorically, anyway. "You look good. To me."

He brightened for a moment, saying, "Oh?" Then he slumped again, sighing, "Nah."

"You think I'm kidding but I'm not," said Craig. He didn't bother to lower his voice: "I like fat guys."

"What! Oh gosh, wow." Quickly, almost spilling, Clyde swallowed down the rest of his drink. He got up, with haste, saying, "I need another one, do you?"

"Sure." Craig got up, pulling down the hem on his sweater and putting a hand to the base of Clyde's neck. "I'll get it. You just sit down."

At the bar, Craig ordered another frothy-headed Guinness for Clyde and a gin-and-tonic for himself. Then he said, "No, cancel that," and changed his order to a vodka and diet Coke. That would make it easier to consume a few of these things, if they tasted light and insignificant, not like something he'd have to worry about later.

At the table Clyde was tapping nervously at his cell phone. Craig set the Guinness down in front of Clyde and said, "Stop that, this is a social occasion."

"There's nothing going on anyway, just some stupid updates. Stan and Kyle are buying a house?"

"Great."

"My dad is going on a date with some woman in his community?"

"Your dad lives in an assisted-living community?"

"No," said Clyde, "he lives in a gated community, in Phoenix. Well, Scottsdale. He has a little two-bedroom apartment there. It's nice."

Craig could not imagine Scottsdale being nice at all.

* * *

><p>Surely the low point of this experience, Craig supposed, was that Clyde's two dogs were waiting by the front door, and began to bark in excess upon the sight of their inebriated master. "Hey," said Clyde, getting down to the floor. "Hey, puppies. Who's my big boys?" He began to kiss them, or whatever on the mouth. It was hard for Craig to tell exactly what Clyde was doing, as he was trapped there in the doorway, his ass exposed to the wind outside and his face blasted by warmth from the house, which he could only attribute to the panting, whining dogs. But there was Clyde on this hands and knees, clutching at the dogs and saying, "Babies, <em>babies<em>," and kissing them. Or something. Again, it was difficult to tell.

"Hello," said Craig. "I'm still here."

"Oh, shush!" It took Craig a moment to realize this was not directed toward him, but toward the dogs. "I know. I know. Daddy's home. Shhh." This display of affection did not cease for a few minutes.

Craig stood there rolling his eyes, sighing, checking the time on his phone. Finally one dog ran off and began to roll, back-to-the-carpet, on the living room floor. The other circles Clyde's legs as Clyde stood. His fleece was matted with dog hair. "So this is my place," he said.

"I know this is your place," said Craig, "I grew up next door. My parents still live there."

"Yeah!" said Clyde. "I know. Do you want to come in?"

Craig brushed into the house, asking, "Can you put those things in a kennel or something?" Craig's dick was hard in anticipation of whatever he was here to do, painfully leaking into his black briefs. He had not had sex in some time, and even a few years ago the sight of these white-furred, drooling monsters guarding the path toward a potential hook-up would have been cause for Craig to turn tail and head out the door.

But then there was Clyde with his lopsided hopeful smile, arms hanging limply at his sides. This man needed to be kissed, Craig knew, he just _needed_ it, and because Craig was drunk he felt that it was somehow his responsibility to do this for Clyde, and also, it was too difficult to walk home from here right now. Not so long as there were no sidewalks on Platte Vista and it was well after nightfall and Craig was in a state of drunkenness and wouldn't be much good scraping along the side of the road. He reached for Clyde and ended up with his hand grazing the side of Clyde's belly, which was both hot and sick, owing to the dog hair.

"Hey." Clyde grasped the zipper on Craig's jacket. It seemed as though he was about to tug it open, but the door was still open and Clyde heaved and said, "I have to take the dogs out."

Immediately Craig dropped his hand from Clyde's side. "Are you serious right now?" It did not come out much like a question.

"Well, they've been alone all night. You know, I have to walk them. "

Craig did _not_ know, as he did not have a dog, but his erection was persistent enough that he couldn't help but let out a whine. "Oh, _no_. No. Can't you just put them in the yard, or something?"

"Um, they're _big dogs_," said Clyde. "They need exercise."

"My dick needs exercise," said Craig. "Point of fact."

"Yeah." Clyde breathed heavily in between his words. "Mine, too."

"Then just put the stupid dogs in the yard—"

"Hey, they're not _stupid—_"

"Put the stupid dogs in the yard and let's do this. It's been _years_," said Craig. "I haven't had sex since I was 27."

"Really? What — wow. What happened?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Oh." Then, almost as if it was funny, Clyde shrugged and said, "I'm a virgin?"

"Are you asking me if you're a virgin?"

"No, I'm _admitting _it."

"Wow, well, I can't say I'm shocked." Not shocked, maybe, but seriously into it. The idea that Clyde had never actually been with a _man_, maybe not even a _person_, was too perfect. "Walk your damn dogs if you must."

"It's okay," said Clyde. Finally he bothered to shut the front door and snap on the light. "I'll just put them in the yard. They'll be okay there. Just this once!"

"Sure." Craig did not lie about caring whether the dogs spent too much time in the yard. He needed to get his hands on this man. That, and he wanted another beer. "Just this once."

Much had changed in the Donovan household. There were new, cheap wooden floors, laid with mass-market slats from the Home Depot. All the walls had been painted the same beige and mauve tones that oppressed Craig in the halls of his own building. There was offensive wall art, the kind designed and constructed by committee to look like found two-by-fours shellacked and trimmed with glinting hardware, hung on the wall fresh out of the box from Target. It was dispiriting and tasteless, but at the same time it was markedly a gay man's home; who else would arrange fruit-shaped faux-Mexican tin-rimmed mirrors around the stairway artfully? Who else would put a large, smiling picture of his mother in a place of honor at the top of the stairs, her middle-aged face flanked by tall, forever-unlit tapers in fake-crystal stems? It sort of broke Craig's heart, but he could not be touched for long. The carpet was discolored, maybe in some dog-related fashion. Craig didn't know and he didn't want to know. He wanted only to get into Clyde's bedroom.

Perhaps Craig should not have been surprised to learn that Clyde had moved into his father's room. What was in Clyde's old bedroom? Who knew; Craig didn't ask. In the master bedroom the mattress was mammoth, a California king that took up most of the space. This place looked like Clyde had picked it out of the Horchow Collection catalogue and installed it as shown. The sheets were brown with tan and cream details, an abstract pattern that did not fully work. At least it was less offensive than the striped, ruffled, mismatching bed skirt. "Oh Jesus," Craig finally remarked, as Clyde sank down onto the mattress, his ass depressing it. "I'll help you do something about this."

"About what?" Clyde was removing his fleece, folding it over unzipped once it was off.

"The décor," said Craig. "Try not to feel too bad about it."

"Why would I feel bad about it?"

"Never mind." Craig sat down on the bed, too. His jacket had come off downstairs, and now he removed his black sweater. He made a point to fold it, neatly and exacting, so it looked floor-ready. The bed was large enough that Craig was able to reach behind him and place it on the opposite edge, several feet away. It would be undisturbed there. He had not expected the bed to be made, let alone neatly so, but it made sense in context. There had probably been dogs in these sheets, maybe as recently as earlier in the day. Perhaps they lounged on the bed, whining, while Clyde was at the store. Did the dogs miss him? Did they roll around in this bed to cover themselves in his scent, and to leave theirs for Clyde to revel in when he crawled under the covers at the end of the day? In his childhood Craig had maintained a predilection for guinea pigs, but that was nothing much like owning a dog. The idea of those two big white things having wills of their own was intimidating, much as the size and expanse of Clyde's bed was. It took Craig a moment that his drunkenness was affecting him.

Hands folded neatly in his lap, Clyde said, "I've got such a boner."

"Me too." Craig leaned over to take Clyde's face in his hands, and then Craig kissed him. Clyde tasted like beer, a bit sour, his fat lips wet but pliable. Clyde wasn't much of a kisser but Craig decided not to care. Clyde sat mostly still, his hands still folded, allowing himself to be kissed. Then he reached for the collar of Craig's T-shirt, and Craig thrust his hard dick into Clyde's gut. "See?"

There was a marked pause in the make-out where Clyde said, "I want to get my clothes off," and Craig consented to this. He removed his own, too, shedding his jeans and his briefs to reveal the pale, narrow truth of his body. It wasn't a bad body, he figured, as it was naturally inclined to slimness and functioned well in just about all capacities. But there was nothing great about it, either, and something about this lack of distinction made Craig cautious for a moment. He overcame that feeling by studying Clyde's physical presentation with great interest. The defining feature of it was a great big stomach that spilled formlessly into Clyde's lap. It was topped with soft little tits that were mostly nipple, sparse hairs lighter than Craig would have figured. Where Craig was pale with yellow-greenish undertones to his skin, Clyde seemed flush.

This was a relief for Craig, for whom a more pronounced difference between himself and his partner was always preferable. It was as if a great feast had been set before Craig, for he had not been so attracted to a man for many years. He had liked Neville and his puppets well enough, and the flattery of being molested by one's important mentor had bridged the gap between Craig's attraction to Neville (somewhat attracted, initially) and how Craig felt being _adored_, which was powerful and aroused. Then there had been that lighting guy, and that had been boredom and madness. Then, the Daves, though that hadn't been reciprocated. Now here was Clyde and the mess that was his swollen, graceless, untested body. Clyde had a colostomy pouch that hung from the side of his gut, thick medical-grade plastic locked into his flesh. Craig was unsure of whether this was a thing to be repelled by, but the actual sack was characterless and vague, with no hints about Clyde's viscera or their contents.

But Clyde had clearly caught Craig staring, and he flinched, asking, "Is this okay?"

"Well, you need it to live, right?" Craig tried to shrug, but his heart wasn't in it.

"For something, yeah. I—"

"Don't tell me," said Craig. "It's fine."

"Do you want to fuck me?"

"No. I'm not into that. I like getting fucked."

"Oh." Clyde was sweating, his face red. "I don't know if I have a preference."

"We don't have to fuck." Craig grabbed for Craig's right thigh and squeezed, trying to smile in a reassuring manner. It seemed to have worked at least somewhat, for Clyde widened his legs and leaned back, sighing. "We can do a bunch of things."

"Will you be disappointed if we don't fuck?"

"Not really," Craig said, though the truth was, he would be, just a bit. Now that Clyde had leaned back and spread his legs Craig had gotten a better look at Clyde's cock. It was something to behold, or at least Craig found it to be notable. The problem was that Clyde's gut consumed it to a certain extent, as if it were hibernating from the cold. But it was _large_, objectively; thick and veiny; choked with blood and red like a stoplight. The foreskin which Craig assumed blanketed this cock in its flaccid state appeared ample enough to cling tightly to the wet head, even at this state of arousal. Were Clyde thinner it might have appeared longer, but it made up for that in character. It wasn't _pornographic_ or ideal, just huge, and that was well enough for Craig. He grabbed it, slicking his thumb across the head. This caused Clyde to jump, yelp, and fall backward onto the mattress. "Very well," said Craig, and he got down on the carpet, to his knees.

"What's wrong?' Clyde asked.

"Nothing. I'm going to take care of you."

"That sounds dirty." Clyde's voice had a tremor to it.

"Yes, that's the idea." Craig stroked the insides of Clyde's thighs, kissing from Clyde's knee all the way up to the hairy juncture where Clyde's dick and his fleshy torso converged. He considered fingering Clyde's ass, then thought better of it. He could have asked, but no matter; here was Clyde's dick, and his two mismatched balls, one noticeably larger than the other. "I'm going to suck your dick."

With a whine, Clyde shifted his weight and said, "Then shut up and just do it, okay." This struck Craig as an incredibly toppy thing to say, and it made his dick throb. He pulled it away from his body and jerked it as he took Clyde's into his mouth, drunk enough that the taste of it and the smell of Clyde's crotch didn't much bother him. It was a sour, intense sort of taste; Craig had never sucked an uncut dick before, but he easily concluded that Clyde must not clean his, exactly. Objectively it tasted bad, but on top of a few drinks it didn't bother Craig much at all. His mouth strained to get all of it in.

It was a mostly silent performance, save for the small noises that accompanied the quick movements of Craig's hand on his cock, or Clyde's occasional grunt. It took Craig a moment to get the hang of Clyde's dick; it was large, and Clyde was not conscientious of its presence, and he began jerking his hips forward in a way that almost no decent lover Craig had ever had would have dared. "Stop it," Craig had to say at one point, taking Clyde's dick out of his mouth. "Don't thrust. Just be still."

"Okay," Clyde agreed. He tried to sit up somewhat, but fell back against the mattress as if sitting were too much with which to bother. "I won't, I promise." But as soon as Craig took Clyde's dick back into his mouth, Clyde began thrusting again. He clearly couldn't help it. Craig stopped stroking himself and just pinched the insides of Clyde's thighs until they were trembling, and he knew Clyde was going to come. With one hand he pinched Clyde off and with the other, he pulled down on Clyde's balls.

"Come in my mouth," Craig said.

"Is that okay?"

"I'm telling you to do it, so, yeah."

"Just, can I—?"

Maybe Craig shouldn't have tolerated this, but he wanted to know what Clyde's come tasted like. Soon he found out: not that great. But the idea of swallowing it all down appealed to him, his own dick growing harder and he made sure he got all of it, licking the final lazy spurts from the folds of Clyde's body. Now Craig felt bad, because it was over, and he was still hard. He climbed up onto the bed where Clyde's eyes were shut. "Are you asleep?" Craig asked.

"No." Now Clyde did sit up, with some difficulty, pulling his legs up on the bed and looking at Craig's dick. "Should I go down on you, too?"

"Do you want to?" Craig asked.

"Shouldn't I?"

"A lot of guys aren't into sucking dick," Craig said, matter-of-factly. "Especially sometimes closeted guys. Have you sucked one before?"

"No."

"So, do you want to try?"

"Could I just touch it?" Clyde asked.

Craig stifled a laugh. "Be my guest," he said. He was quite a bit drunk still, and turned on enough that it took no more than a few tugs to get him past the point of no return. Clyde's hands were large and warm, unusually soft for a man's hands in Craig's experience. He fumbled with Craig's dick as if it were a desk toy, no more than a curio meant to keep him busy. It was nothing special: yellowish and pale, like the rest of him; slightly bent in a way that gave it a modicum of character; narrower than most. Though it was long and thick enough to have always felt good in Craig's hand, after Craig had come and was resting his forehead against Clyde's shoulder, Clyde whispered, "Your dick. It looks so naked."

"So you've never seen one without a foreskin?"

"No," Clyde croaked. "Only in porn." When he said this there was a slight tremble to his voice. He then sniffed, wiped his eye with the back of his wrist, and began openly crying.

Craig felt immediately uncomfortable, and on top of that he had just come, which made him very tired. "Hey," he said, pressing his lips to Clyde's ear. "That was really hot." They made out a little more, the taste of come still on Craig's tongue as it mingled with salty teardrops, and summarily passed out. Craig slept with his front to Clyde's back, arm draped over Clyde's flank, open palm resting on Clyde's belly. It had been so long since he'd slept with another person.

* * *

><p>The least graceful follow-up to that night came the next morning, as Craig staggered home from Clyde's fast-asleep side, hoping he hadn't left anything and praying the only thing he had taken with him was everything he'd come with. By the time he was sloughing up Platte Vista again he had become conscious of all the micro-thin white dog hairs plastered to his clothing and, god forbid, his skin. They seemed only to be soft on the surface of Craig's shirt, and yet when he picked at them they proved incredibly difficult to lift and remove. He was grateful to have a lint roller at home, and failing that, a good drycleaner in the city. By the time he walked through the building's side door and into the concrete stairwell that he considered his own personal lobby, things were looking up. He would use the lint-roller on his shirt, take a shower, read the newest issue of Dwell magazine, seething in jealousy and radiating superiority at alternative spreads. This feeling of compensation and relief lasted only until he reached his front door.<p>

For there, standing at the entrance to Craig's apartment, were two more old classmates, Kyle Broflovski and Stanley Marsh. Initially Craig did not recognize Stanley, but this had to be him, for here was Kyle, and Kyle was unmistakable: chubbier than the last time Craig had seen him, and almost certainly wearing a women's cardigan, but that hair and that goofy self-conscious posture belonged to no one else. Who else would be in Kyle's company but Stan? They stuck to each other like pieces of rice, a figure of speech that left Craig queasy as he visualized it. It was probably Clyde's semen roiling around in his stomach. That and this off-chance encounter with Stan and Kyle. He hadn't even seen them in years. It was as if _they knew_.

They were with a woman with a coiffed up-do that stunk of hairspray; that did not help Craig's sudden nausea. As it was he looked atrocious, and in just a few short seconds he had suddenly begun to feel worse. "Wow," he said, hoping he had his keys accessible. "What are you guys doing here?"

"None of your business!" Kyle snapped. He had the same persnickety tone Craig remembered tuning out over four years of high school Latin. "What are _you_ doing here, Craig?"

"I live here." As soon as Craig had spoken these words he knew it would be difficult to prove, for in his state of general unease it had come to his attention that his keys were not only inaccessible, they were not on his person at all.

"Well, it's great to meet a resident," said that blonde woman. Her hair was definitely fake. "Do you _love_ living here?"

"It's okay for South Park." He dropped his hands to his sides and said, "Yeah."

"You live there?" Stan asked. He pointed at Craig's door. He had the most generic general look known to man: black T-shirt, jeans, Adidas; shaggy dark hair; no discernible expression of any kind.

"Yes, for a few years now."

"Wow," said Kyle. "Well, that's — okay."

"Well, it seems you already know some of your new neighbors!" said the blonde woman. It was obvious now that she was a real estate agent. She had a clipboard and everything.

"We're about to go put in a bid on this apartment," Kyle said. He had at least managed to fix his hair at some point since age 18, as it no longer erupted from his head like a shockingly bad clown wig. "Literally right now."

"Excuse me," said Craig. "I think I am literally going to be sick."

"Oh my," said the woman. "You poor thing!"

"Well, how do you like that?" said Kyle. "Are you sure you want to live here?"

"It's the best place in South Park, dude," Stan replied, in an even and measured way.

"Not because of you," said Craig. "Just — late night." He staggered away.

Back down the stairs, and Craig got down to puke on the side of the building. There was a fleeting second in which he considered looking for evidence of semen in the mix, but that was too gross by any measure, and he had to stand back up anyway, as Stan and Kyle were rushing over.

"Dude," said Stan, "are you okay?"

"I was drinking a lot." Craig wiped his mouth with his wrist.

"Ah," said Kyle, like this explained things to his satisfaction. "You seriously live here?"

"I do, but I think I've forgotten my house key, so I'll have to go back and get it."

"Go back where?" asked Stan.

Craig glared at him. "Does it matter?"

"We're headed to the broker's office, so, yes, we could give you a ride."

Craig thought about it. "Can you drop me off at the corner of Bonanza and Fluhmann?"

"There's nothing at the corner of Bonanza and Fluhmann," said Kyle.

"Look. You said you'd give me a ride."

"I didn't say that," said Kyle, "Stan said that."

"Look, dude, we seriously don't care, but we're happy to give you a ride. We're getting back in the car anyway."

Considering whether his plan of being dropped off a few blocks away was even worth it, and considering he'd still have to walk through his old neighborhood, he sighed and said, "Yes, please. But, I'd like to be dropped off closer to town. At Bonanza and Brahler."

"So," Kyle said, as they were walking to the car, "you're going over to your parents'?"

"No."

"Seems like you'd have to be, since that's where you live."

"Broflovski," said Craig. "It's really none of your business." Then of course it occurred to Craig that South Park was _very_ small, and Clyde did regrettably live right next door to Craig's parents. "I'm going over to Clyde's house."

"Oh." Kyle turned around to stare at Craig. "How's Clyde?"

"Well, he's—" Craig was really not sure how to describe Clyde. "He's in the closet? He's super fat? He's got awful taste in everything? His dogs are enormous."

"They're so cute," said Stan. He was driving, badly. He drove over literally every pothole in the road, and there were considerable potholes on every road in South Park, with the exception of Platte Vista.

"Huge dogs," said Craig. "I don't get it."

"What's to get?" Kyle asked.

"Well, you have these two very large dogs. They shed everywhere. They slobber. You have to feed them, pick up after them. Seems like a hassle."

"They're just really nice dogs," Stan repeated. "Really cute."

"We thought about getting a dog," said Kyle.

"So why didn't you?"

"Other plans."

"Such as what?" Craig asked. Kyle opened his mouth, as if about to reply, but this was where they arrived in front of Clyde's house. "Never mind. Thank you for the ride."

"No problem," said Stan.

"We might be seeing you a lot," said Kyle.

"Perhaps," said Craig. "I lived in this town for two or three years without seeing anyone. Then, suddenly, everyone."

"We're just moving back now," said Kyle.

"That's great." Craig unbuckled his seatbelt. "Thank you." He got out of the car. He staggered up the pathway to Clyde's front door. He heard the engine idling behind him, though it faded as he got closer to the house and farther from the sidewalk. He tread carefully, staring at the path, lest he somehow come into contact with dog poop. He hadn't noticed last night, but the yard seemed nice. Manicured, even. Until Craig rang the doorbell and he heard Stan and Kyle drive away, he thought about whether Clyde did the landscaping himself, or if he hired someone.

"Welcome back," said Clyde. He was in pajama pants, his fat stomach hanging out. As if he had only just internalized the situation in which he found himself at present, he quickly put his hands over his chest, protectively, like a maiden bathing in a pool. "You kinda ran off."

"Well, you were sleeping," said Craig. "That was always the most awkward thing as a kid, when you woke up at a slumber party before everyone else and you had to just sit there, quietly, wondering when they would wake up."

"So you left?" Clyde asked.

"When you're a kid you don't have the option to leave. You just have to sit there in your sleeping bag until everyone else gets up."

"Okay." Clyde looked down for a moment, absently scratching at his arm hair. "Is this about your keys?"

"Yes."

"Well," said Clyde. "You should come back in."

The house was quiet for a Sunday, with the exception of the television, which was tuned at a low volume to an infomercial about some kind of juice press. "I'm not going to buy that," said Clyde. He fumbled for the remote and then turned the TV off, though the cable box stayed on. "Um." He kept pressing buttons, the television flickering on and off, until he finally said, "Oh, fuh-yeah," and switched everything off manually. "What can I do for you?"

"My keys," said Craig. "Maybe a cup of water."

"Coffee?" Clyde asked.

"Please no," said Craig. "Just the water. And my keys. … And maybe some of whatever you have sitting there."

"That? Oh." Clyde sheepishly picked up a cereal bowl of pinkish liquid. "This was Lucky Charms? I mean, off-brand Lucky Charms. Fruitful Gems?"

"Whatever," said Craig. "Keys? Water?" He followed Clyde into the kitchen, where a second television was on, though this was muted. It was playing the same infomercial.

"I just really like infomercials," Clyde said as he filled a glass with water from the tap. "They're soothing." Outside on the concrete patio the two dogs were sunning themselves. One of their backs was butted up against the plate glass, the fur an oddly splayed pattern against the sliding door.

"Uh huh." Craig took a sip. "Keys?"

"Have you seen the one with the—"

"I do not own a television."

"Oh." Clyde began to scratch as his naked stomach. "Because they're pretty cool."

"Look. I doubt it. Keys?"

A strange thing happened to Clyde at this moment, which was that he began to look uncomfortable. Not in the sense that he usually did, ill-at-ease in his own skin. This was more like a man caught between two big choices, struggling with the weight of his decision. He began to pull at his own fingers, squishing his mouth together oddly.

"What's wrong?" Craig asked.

"I am not going to give you your keys back until you agree to something."

"Okay." Craig emptied his glass of water.

"We have to go out again."

"Excuse me? Clyde, we never went out."

"Okay, well, we ought to."

"We ought to? Clyde, I vomited in the fucking bushes on the side of my house this morning."

"Because the thought of being intimate with me sickens you?"

"What? No, that's stupid. Because I drank too much last night. So I'm a little hungover right now, and Stan and Kyle saw me. Puking, I mean. On my building. So I guess what I'm _really_ trying to say is, I've been having a rough morning. Please give me back my keys so I can go back home and get in bed."

Clyde did not flinch. "No."

"What is this backbone you have suddenly?"

"I don't want my first time with a man to be a meaningless fluke. I want it to mean something!"

"You came, right? What additional meaning would you like in your blow jobs?"

"I just don't want it hanging over me like a mistake."

"How would it — ugh. Okay, Clyde. Fine. If you want to go out to dinner or something, we can do that. But you have to pay, and I'm only saying yes because I need my keys back. And I also need a ride home."

They agreed to go out on Thursday, to a bistro in the city where Craig was certain he would not know anyone. Clyde said he would have preferred Friday or Saturday, because he did not work weekends, but Craig dismissed it: "Friday and Saturday evenings are for basic bitches. I don't deal with basic bitches. Thursday is for sophisticates." He was explaining this in the car, where Clyde was shirtless, his belly pressed to the steering wheel even as he leaned back in his seat. For a moment Craig was tempted to blow him again here, but then a disturbing thought occurred to him: What if Stan and Kyle came back? Another wave of nausea hit Craig. "Look, thanks for the ride. Pick me up at 7 on Thursday."

"Isn't that late to drive into the city?"

"No one serious dines before 8:30."

"Can't we compromise with 6:30? I'm driving."

"You can have 6:45 but don't push it or I'm canceling."

"But you promised we'd go out if I gave you your keys and I gave you a ride home!"

"Well, Clyde, look. Here we are at my house." Craig lingered for a moment. He was compelled to lean over and kiss Clyde farewell. Then he shook it off, saying, "Ugh," and got out of the car.

"Don't forget!" Clyde called, from the driver's seat. "Thank you! Good bye!"

Craig had never been so glad to be home in his life.

* * *

><p>Instantly Craig knew he should not have taken Clyde to Jesuis. The complaining began before they had arrived at the restaurant: "Why is city traffic so bad on Thursday night?" "I don't want to pay $15 for valet." "I don't know how to parallel park." "I hope my dogs are okay. I wonder if they miss me?" "So now we have to walk to the restaurant?"<p>

"Clyde." Craig looked him up and down. Yes, he would have a problem with that, wouldn't he? "You've been gone for 90 minutes. Your dogs don't miss you. This space is gigantic. Your parking job was fine. The restaurant is only three blocks away."

"But I hate walking. What if I trip?"

"This is barely the distance from your house to Tweek's coffee place. At least there's a sidewalk. On what would you trip?"

"I don't know, sidewalk cracks."

"Watch where you're going. You'll be fine."

"What if I get a ticket?"

"You won't."

"What if—"

Craig halted in the middle of the quiet street, crossing his arms. "I thought you wanted to go out?"

"Well, I did, but. I meant somewhere more like, in South Park. Like, Red Robin."

Craig merely scoffed. "This place is much better. Come on." He resisted the impulse to grab Clyde's arm and drag him, physically, into the restaurant.

When they were seated, Clyde touched everything in front of him: his silverware, the plate, the menu, and his glass of water. He took a sip from it and asked, "Did you not want to go to Red Robin because you didn't want to be seen with me?"

"I didn't want to go to Red Robin because the food is garbage. And it's in the mall. That's not fitting."

"Not fitting of what? I work at the mall."

"Something I would put in my body." When Clyde seemed hurt by this, Craig sighed. He said, "Look. This menu is very nice. You'll like a lot of things on it. They have steak frites. They have French onion soup. It's very good. It's made from ox bones."

"Ox bones are in the soup?"

"The broth is made from ox bones. And a big hunk of bread, and it's covered with cheese. It doesn't taste like onions at all. You'll love it. Then you can get a steak with french fries. It's just like the food at Red Robin, only better."

"What are you going to have?"

"I'm going to have the special."

"What's the special?"

"Well, I don't know, we haven't heard about it yet. The waiter will tell us. Whenever I go out to eat I order the special. It's usually more interesting. Or in-season. This place specializes in seared meats and off-cuts. They use a lot of seasonal vegetables and locally ranched beef. It's not the most interesting restaurant in America, but it's better than Red Robin, and you'll like it."

Clyde sank into his chair, pouting. "All right," he sniffed. "That's fair."

The special was a bronzino on risotto, and Craig did not order it because "no restaurant makes a proper risotto." Instead he had a fava bean salad with young lettuces and a stew of sweetbreads en papillote , the papillote in this case referring to a kind of thin pastry envelope which Craig broke open, steam rising off the stew inside. "Close enough," he said, digging in.

There had been little conversation, Craig mostly content to let Clyde eat bread and stare across the table. Craig was still working on his entrée, though, when Clyde wiped the last of the maître'd butter from his lips. "So," he said, regarding his empty plate with a kind of wistful look. "How's it going?"

Craig shrugged. "This thing is just okay. Why are there so many carrots?"

"I don't know."

"I wasn't _asking_ you."

"Oh." Clyde looked to the bread basket, which he had already emptied, and slouched in his chair like a bored child. "How was your week?"

"It was the same as my other weeks. I met with some clients, I made some supplier phone calls. I designed a floor plan for someone's nursery. That bitch screamed my ear off because I put the crib next to the door, which is apparently bad luck in some mystical religion. How was I supposed to know that?"

"You weren't." Clyde sat up now, seeming excited. "I get people like that, too. They get pissed at me if their shoes don't fit, as if I _designed_ the shoes. But not every shoe fits everyone's foot, I mean — you can go up or down a size, but if that doesn't work and the show isn't comfortable, you shouldn't buy that show. And, I don't know, people get very pissy with me about it. Pissy with me and my staff, you know. I mean, I say 'people' but it's mostly women. Men just leave the shoes on the floor and walk out."

"People don't understand that you didn't _design_ the shoe."

"Well, yes, they think there is some secret additional shoe size that will work for them, or some trick to get it to fit. But it's like that Cinderella story."

"When you find the perfect fit, you just know," said Craig.

"I meant more like, if a shoe _really _doesn't fit you, your only option is the start cutting your toes off."

"Oh." This gave Craig pause. "Well, that's dark."

"Yes."

Craig shrugged and went back to his dinner.

"Have you been hanging out with Stan and Kyle?" Clyde asked.

"What? God, no."

"You said they saw you barfing."

"Oh. Well, they did. I happened to run into them. Checking out the unit next to mine. I didn't purposely interact with them. Apparently they're putting in an offer on that unit. They want to buy it."

"That'd be really great."

"It would be horrifying," said Craig. "Can you imagine, living next-door to people you grew up with?"

"I live next-door to your parents."

"Well, yes, but I no longer live there. And anyway, isn't it weird, living where you grew up? In that house?"

"It's my house," said Clyde. "Well, maybe they'll get outbid. Then you won't have to deal with Stan and Kyle."

"Yes. Maybe." Craig fidgeted in his chair.

"But they're nice people. Maybe it will be fun, living next-door to them."

"Clyde. I moved back to this stupid town for some reason, and I'm stagnating. Not _this_ stupid town. But, South Park. I don't want to deal with them and the whole pile of crazy shit they'll move in with. I don't want to feel like I'm reliving third grade."

"What would be so third-grade about them moving in? They weren't a gay couple in third grade. You weren't an asshole in third grade."

"Of course I was," said Craig.

Clyde seemed hurt. Then he perked up and said, "What's for dessert?"

"Whatever you want. You're paying."

Then Clyde became sullen again, and ordered profiteroles.

The drive home was mostly silent, Craig too sober for his liking. For the first time since he had moved back home several years ago, he did not feel regret upon leaving the city. Instead, he felt relief. Craig attributed this to his desire to get out of Clyde's car as soon as possible. This date felt like it would never end.

Parked in front of his building, Clyde slid the car into park and asked, "Can I come up?"

"Usually people wait to be invited." Craig wondered if maybe he should ask Clyde upstairs, and then have sex with him. He had a bottle of middle-priced cava he could open, and he was not meeting with his client the next day until 2 p.m. Craig hesitated, though, while Clyde sat there gripping the steering wheel, the soft features of his face muted in the dark. "Thank you for dinner."

"You're welcome." Clyde turned toward Craig, and the look on his face was heartbreaking. "I was a virgin, you know."

"Yeah. I got that." Now Craig felt awful. Just, not awful enough. "Look. You're just figuring out this whole gay thing. You're not even out. … Maybe that sounds harsh but I don't really know what the point of going out again would be. I don't want to have to deal with whatever drama goes along with that. I like a very quiet life."

"What drama?" Clyde asked. "My dad's not around. He doesn't have to know?"

"So you'd sleep with me and then your dad would ask you if you were seeing anyone and you would just say 'no.' I would be this little secret. Does your dad keep in touch with anyone from South Park?"

Clyde opened his mouth, as if to say something, and then he shut it again.

"Yeah. So. I think it would just create an awkward situation if we were to keep going out."

Silence.

"Good night, Clyde. Thanks for dinner." Craig leaned over and pecked Clyde on the cheek. "It was fun."

"No it wasn't," said Clyde. His voice was raspy. "If you'd had fun you'd invite me upstairs and then we'd go out again."

"All right. Maybe it wasn't fun. I'm going upstairs and going to bed now." Craig glanced at the clock and saw that it was barely 10. "Good night." He got out of the car and went upstairs, deeply suspecting that Clyde was still sitting in his car, possibly crying.

"You can't be responsible for Clyde's feelings," Craig said to himself, taking off his shoes at the front door. "He'll be fine." Craig didn't really believe this, but he did at least make an effort to wash his face, brush his teeth, and get in bed. He was hardly tired, but something compelled him to at least follow through on what he'd said about going to bed. That way if it ever came up, he wouldn't have to lie. Unfortunately he wasn't tired, being that it was so early. So he sat up in bed for a time, reading. Slowly his thoughts drifted from the page, and he began to feel pangs of sexual longing. He thought of Clyde's cock and what it might be like were he to ride it through a long, intense orgasm, his come splashing up into Clyde's face. At the exact moment Craig was getting off to this thought it was a pure delight, but as soon as he had come and was lying in bed alone, he began to feel bad. Now it was midnight and he really was tired. He shut off the light and over the next hour, gradually fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

I am the least patient person maybe ever, so I rushed to put up chapter 2. Since there's no image embedding on FFN please check out a great illustration by Nhaingen over on my Tumblr, where I can be found at **skrtomg**. Thanks for reading, and feel free to let me know what you think!

* * *

><p>Craig's existence continued. He endured. That was the best he could say about his life at present. His work became consuming as he was hired to consult on the refurbishing of the South Park Community Center. It was an exciting project in the sense that he had never thought about the look of a community center before, and presented a real challenge. Unfortunately the challenge was that he did not give a shit about the town community center, and had no feelings about what it should look like. He suggested a color palette of earthy browns, spruce green, and berry-toned magenta. He hoped this was mature, refined, and a little bit bold. He didn't want to shock most of South Park. He suspected he had only been approached about this at the influence of his father, who had after many years of plodding attempts to become elected, <em>finally<em> made his way onto the town organizing committee. Not that Craig much cared for the town or its committees. He kept his head down and did his work.

One afternoon he came home from a meeting at the town hall to find a moving van parked in front of his building. Dread enveloped him as he went upstairs and saw old blankets laid down in the hallway. The door to the apartment next to his was open. Craig never saw an open door he didn't walk through. Unfortunately, he found Stan and Kyle on the other side of this one.

"Well," said Kyle, putting down a small potted fern. "So it seems we're neighbors now."

"Seems it. You bought this apartment?"

"Yes."

"Why was I not informed?"

"Why would you be _informed_?" Kyle put his hands on his hips. He was wearing women's clothing again; a three-quarter-length-sleeve modal cranberry sweater this time. It looked stupid with his hair and Craig had half a mind to say so. "It's none of your business, actually."

Craig felt it very well must have been his business, since a giant moving truck was taking up a lot of space outside of his apartment building and, more to the point, he had lived in this building since day one. Surely it was his right as a property owner to be informed of comings and goings in the condo association? "I suppose not," Craig said. "Welcome. Congratulations."

"It's really a relief," Kyle said. He pushed the fern away with his foot. Craig would not have done that. It might have scratched the floor. "Stanley!" Kyle screamed. "Come meet the new neighbors!"

Stan came hustling down from the loft, only to see that the new neighbors happened to be Craig. "Oh," he said, as if this were a major let-down.

They all stood there for a moment, looking at each other. Stan looked to Kyle, as if for an order to be carried out; Kyle looked at Craig with some kind of caution. Craig looked at both of them in disbelief. It might have gone on forever, had some movers not begun to wheel in heavy-duty kitchen equipment. Only then did Craig notice that the kitchen appliances in this apartment had been totally stripped out, leaving only hookups in the wall and gaps between the counters and sink where before there had been a fridge, oven, and range.

"Very good," said Kyle, rushing over to deal with that.

Stan shook his head, as if it had been charming, the way Kyle had skipped off. "It's our first place," he said, and only then did he begin to grin. "We're pumped."

"Where were you living before?" Craig asked.

"My parents' basement. Denver, before that."

"So you figured you'd buy all new kitchen appliances?"

"Sort of," said Stan. "I cook."

"Cook!" Kyle exclaimed. "Please." He sauntered back over. There was a kind of unnatural rhythm to the way he walked; it was not what Craig would call "masculine." Too articulate. Kyle's hips tottered across his frame like his torso was loosely pegged into his ass. "Stan is a _chef_. Don't be modest!"

"We don't own anything," Stan explained. "Except some clothes, this kitchen equipment, and a plant."

"The plant is a housewarming gift from my mother," said Kyle.

"Hey," said one of the delivery men, a guy with a clipboard. "Who's gonna sign for this?"

"I'll do it," said Stan, and he left Kyle standing with Craig.

"What are you going to sleep on?" Craig asked. He looked closed at Kyle's posture, at the way he held his hands: limp at his sides, until he caught Craig looking at him. Then he picked them up and held them slack in front of his belly, just crossed at the wrists. It called Craig's attention to both Kyle's wrists, which were slender, and his stomach, which was not. The cut of his sweater was flattering but Craig could see some extra padding underneath it.

"The floor, I guess," said Kyle. "I mean, we don't have a bed."

"You could go back to Stan's parents' house and sleep there and then get up tomorrow morning and go buy a bed."

"No! Don't send me back there," Kyle said, quickly. "We'll just sleep on the floor. It's fine. It'll be romantic."

"There is literally not one thing romantic about being an idiot," said Craig.

"Craig. This is our first night together in our beautiful new apartment. Don't fuck it up!"

Stan came back over, thanking the delivery guys and holding a copy of their receipt.

"Don't you think it's weird you don't have a bed?" Craig asked. "Or any furniture?"

"Well, we just moved in," said Stan.

Though he found himself thinking that he should by no means offer them a place to stay, Craig heard himself asking, "Do you want to sleep on my couch?"

"Craig, shut up!"

"Well," said Stan, "it seems better than the floor."

"Just come by whenever you want to go to sleep," Craig said. "See you soon."

Craig went home and sat on his couch, wondering why he had just done what he had done. To be nice, he told himself, though he didn't really believe it. He wasn't nice. He was an asshole.

When Stan and Kyle knocked on the door Craig considered that he might simply neglect to answer it. He let them in despite his urge to be nasty; Stan was holding a duffel bag straining at its seams. Kyle had already changed into pajamas of a sort, flannel pants and a hoodie commemorating his brother's bar mitzvah.

"It's really nice of you to let us stay here tonight," said Stan. "We'll go buy a mattress tomorrow."

"How old are you?" Craig asked. "Don't buy a mattress and just put it on the floor."

"I assume it would come with a frame of some kind," Stan said.

They were still standing in the doorway, Craig leaning with arms crossed on the frame. No one had ever stayed the night at his apartment before. He felt uneasy about letting them enter. Kyle did so without being invited, pushing his way in with his flannel pants dragging on the floor.

"Holy shit," he said, gazing up and around him. "This place is spectacular."

"It's the same as yours," said Craig, though he knew it wasn't true.

"It's really not." Kyle sat down on the couch, looking everywhere with wide eyes. "It's like a fucking magazine spread."

"Thanks." Craig finally stepped out of the doorway. He was nervous that Kyle was sitting on his precious couch, probably getting it dirty with his greasy little hands, shedding weird red hairs all over. Craig would vacuum for hours and never be rid of the traces.

"Seriously." Stan took a step inside and shut the door behind him, which Craig found presumptuous. "Your place looks great."

"I know."

"Did you do this yourself?" Kyle asked.

"Yes."

"How did you afford all this stuff?"

"Afford what?" Craig asked. "The couch was a floor sample at Design Within Reach. And I built the table myself."

"Are those flowers? Like, is that a greenhouse?" Kyle got up to wander toward the bromeliads, in asymmetrical squarish black pots. His rusty terra cottas were stepped like inverted pyramids, hand-built by some old women who lived at a commune in the Ozarks. Neville had known them. They'd stayed on the commune for a month and Craig had bought as many pots as would fit in the backseat of the car. He had long since strategically planted the remainder of his stock in the living rooms of his earliest clients.

"They're just flowers," said Craig, "hot-house flowers."

"What even," said Stan.

"I did not invite you here to gawk." Craig began to blush. He knew the creeping heat on his cheeks was not merely the humidifier he disguised in this corner behind a plant stand.

"This just makes me jealous," said Kyle. "Our house will never look this good."

"It could," said Craig, which was merely being charitable. Their house _would_ never look this good.

"We don't even own any furniture," said Stan.

"Well, do you have some money?"

Kyle snapped, "Rude!"

"On the most basic level you need at least a small amount of money to buy furniture. Though you don't have to furnish your whole apartment right away."

"Yes we do," said Stan.

"Okay, whatever. It's none of my business." Craig turned to walk away. He no longer wanted to linger with them in the corner. Flowers were best appreciated from a distance, he felt.

"It could be, though," said Kyle.

"Hm?"

"I mean, our furniture. It could be. If we paid you to do it for us."

Craig paused and turned around. He crossed his arms, regarding them with curiosity and doubt. "You could," he said, "but I wouldn't take the job."

"Why not?"

"How do you know what I do for a living?"

"Everyone knows what everyone does for a living," said Stan, "in South Park."

"Clyde told us."

"Clyde."

"Yeah," said Stan.

"What else did he tell you?"

Neither Stan nor Kyle said anything, though Stan looked at the floor, and Kyle crossed his arms to mirror Craig's posture, a forced neutral expression plastering his face.

"Oh. Good. I'm not going to take your business."

"Well, why not?" Kyle asked.

"I have enough work to do already as it is. Furnishing and styling your entire apartment? No thank you. I'm not sure my aesthetic is right for you guys."

"Why not?" said Stan.

"Please?" Kyle whined.

"I'll go shopping with you," said Craig. "As a courtesy. Free of charge."

"That almost sounds like a _friendly_ thing to do," said Kyle.

"Yes, well." Craig sniffed. "I'll get some sheets for the couch." He walked away this time, ascending the stairs and heading toward the chest at the foot of his bed where he kept his ridiculously nice linens. Here was a cotton-flax flat sheet, oatmeal in color, the fabric flecked with ornate, hand-stamped steely aqua geometrics. They were both simple and ornate, extraordinarily comfortable. He hesitated to let anyone else use them, for there was no set like this anywhere else in the world. The best thing about artisanal goods, though, was that there was no lack of supply of talented and desperate people delighted to shower you with opportunities to buy their hand-churned goose-fat soap or oil-rubbed bronze mortar and pestle. Craig's personal philosophy had somehow morphed into one of excess in minimalism: the less one had, the better everything could be. All of his sheets were a work of art, but he laid them on the couch for Stan and Kyle anyway, along with a hand-crocheted quilt his grandmother had gifted to him, back when she had been more with it.

The beauty of the couch was that, as the star of the apartment, it was generous in depth and fit two relatively normally sized men in something like but not quite approaching perfect comfort. He pulled the tall curtains shut and directed them to the bathroom. "Help yourselves to whatever," he said.

"It's really nice of you to let us stay," said Stan.

"I would have been fine on the floor," said Kyle.

"No, dude," said Stan, "your back."

"Floors are good for the back." Kyle looked to Craig as if he might agree.

"Sure? I guess." Craig shrugged. "I have a bed, so. It's not an issue for me." He paused, then needlessly added: "My back is fine."

"Well," said Kyle, "lucky you. Mine's so fucked-up. I don't even think I _did_ anything to it. I think it's just like this from being alive."

"That sounds really awful." Craig stood there for a moment, looking at Kyle curled up Stan's arms on his incredibly expensive and tasteful sectional sofa. "I'm going to bed now."

"Thanks for having us," said Stan.

"Good night!" said Kyle.

"Good bye. I mean, good night." Craig he went upstairs. Only as he was flossing, staring at his unnaturally even teeth in the bathroom mirror, did he realize that he had a guest bedroom and he could have put Stan and Kyle in it. It seemed a consciously cruel oversight, but it had not been intentional. He rinsed with Listerine, the golden antiseptic kind, and wondered if perhaps he shouldn't go tell them that he had a wonderful full-size bed in a room downstairs that had no windows but a lovely rice-paper lamp the cast elongated Indonesian forms on the wall, dancing if someone gently spun the lamp's convex, weightless body. It was a tacky lamp and its loveliness did nothing to diminish its tackiness, or the fact that it painfully reminded Craig of the Christmas he had received it from Neville, Craig age 19 and stupidly touched despite the fact Neville had just told him that enrolling in his 300-level theory seminar next semester was compulsory. Craig had read over the course bulletin again and again but he found nothing about a requirement constraining him to take such an elective.

Craig had not gone home for Christmas, as he had been uneasy about his relationship to the rest of his family at the time, and so he had spent all but one evening of his break at Neville's in Capitol Hill, only to crawl back to his dorm room one cloudy afternoon, lamp in his arms, wondering if perhaps this was wrong, or rather, if the lamp was ugly. It was scarlet in color, the shadows murky twilight blue through the fragile paper, and try as he might no amount of looking could tell Craig whether or not he found the lamp gorgeous or ugly. He sat in his dorm room and spun it by its spindle top, watching the figures waltz across his dormitory wall. That had been 10 years ago. Now he stood at the top of the stairs and decided once and for all it was ugly and it was tacky, and that was why he had put it in his underused guest bedroom, the one he had just forgotten existed. Though, why should he remember? He had never had a guest.

He stood at the top of the stairs and took two steps down, then one up, then retreated all the way, then sat squat on the top step. From here he could see that Stan and Kyle were sleeping, and it would have been insensitive to wake them. Beyond that, he did not want to appear rude. Though their apartment had a similar layout they must not have realized they had been slighted. Then again, if they had been sleeping in the Marsh house basement and now considered it a significant improvement to sleep on the floor, a couch probably seemed beyond generous. At this conclusion Craig stood and got into bed.

* * *

><p>The next morning Stan and Kyle were gone, either to work (whatever work construed for them, cooking or whatever, Craig figured) or to buy a bed; whatever those two did, and Craig hated to consider it. The linens were folded neatly and left on the couch, and Craig was of a mind to have them dry-cleaned until he realized they carried now a soft, unusual smell, perhaps their scents mingled together. Though to Craig it did not necessarily smell <em>good<em> there was something nice about it all the same. He put the unwashed sheets and his grandmother's quilt away at the foot of his bed and went into the guest bedroom, where he found that horrid lamp, the one had he been considering as he wondered if extending new hospitality would make him seem like a bad person. He picked it up and then unplugged it, then put it on the kitchen counter as he showered and dressed.

He made himself a much-needed cortado and drank it in front of the windows, looking down on the building's parking lot underneath his balcony. It met Stan and Kyle's on the left, where their spaces were divided by a steel railing. This was all secondary to the building, part of its conversion. They were here now, and pending some ill happenstance Craig did not wish on them (a death, a breakup, the accumulation of an unusually large personal fortune) they were probably not going to leave. He washed out his cup, put it in the dishwasher, and took the lamp next door.

He knocked once and waited, then twice. No one was home; that seemed to be the case. He left the lamp by the door. Then he went home and scribbled a note to leave with it:

_This is a housewarming gift. - Craig Tucker._

He considered hinting at the story behind it, too, lest they not understand exactly the significance of shadow puppets and their value to a certain type of whimsically frustrating person. So now Craig stood there, next door to his own apartment in the chilly hallway, contemplating whether this was a meaningful and generous act or if he was using these poor saps to get rid of something ugly that reminded him of an ugly part of his life. They had been terrible assholes growing up, so annoying that Craig had refused to LARP with them at age 10, siding instead with even more obnoxious people, and also Clyde. But there was something self-congratulatory about their partnership and it had always bothered Clyde. Stan, for example, was so sentimental that when a girl he had been dating for nine months broke up with him (to date Craig's friend Token, actually), he had gone essentially catatonic and just laid around the locker room moaning. A boy of 9, Craig thought to himself. Such dramatics.

Kyle, on the other hand, had always been a bit prissy, the sort of boy whose self-worth was astronomical. He was very invested in being right and on occasions when he wasn't refused to concede. It was infuriating if it wasn't cute, though it was often cute, and Craig forced himself to admit that his bad hair and effeminate chubbiness were still cute, and yet Craig did not imagine Kyle would ever have been into someone like him, because there was something plainly normative about the way he wore flannel pants to bed and kind of wanted to sleep on the floor. Craig decided that it was kind of him to gift them his lamp and that perhaps living near them wouldn't be horrible.

Craig spent the day on the phone with a carpenter, as he had several work orders to place. He had imagined this would take only a couple of hours, but when he finally hung up it was in fact nighttime. He decided to have hummus for dinner later in the week and began preparing to soak chickpeas. The knock at the door came as he was on a stepladder getting his dried beans and legumes down from their spot in the cabinet over the microwave.

It was Kyle, and he was wearing a sort of cream-colored scallop-edged collarless blazer. It was the sort of thing Craig would expect to see the "creative" daughter wearing to her family's Memorial Day celebration on a yacht. Kyle clutched what would have been the lapels were the blazer not horrifying and said, "Thank you for the lamp."

"You're welcome."

"It's really sweet of you," said Kyle. "Stan and I are really touched."

"Good." Now Craig was glad he hadn't woken them up and told them to relocate to the guest bedroom.

"It's a little symbolic, you know, getting up a lamp—"

"I did not get it for you. I gave it to you. That was my lamp. It was given to me by my lover."

"Your lover?"

"Yes, my ex. He studied puppetry arts and performance. He gave it to me for Christmas not long after we'd gotten together."

"Craig," said Kyle, his little voice breaking. "You don't need to give us something that means a lot to you."

"What's the point of a gift if it doesn't?"

"Oh." Kyle let go of his blazer, crossing his arms. "I guess that's true."

"He took me to Indonesia once."

"Oh? How was it?"

"Muggy. Unsanitary."

"Oh. Um. Do you think I would like it there?"

"I'm sure you wouldn't," said Craig.

"Oh. Okay." Kyle cleared his throat. "Well, we're grateful you let us stay last night, and Stan is very happy about the lamp. So how would you like to come to dinner?"

"Right now?"

"No, not right now. Tomorrow, maybe."

"I suppose I could." It was just next door, after all.

"Well, great."

"Thank you for the invitation."

"Do you have any food allergies?" Kyle dropped his arms to his hips. "Stan told me to ask."

"No."

"Is there anything you don't like?"

"No," said Craig, "I really like everything."

"Well, great!"

This was how Craig came to find himself sitting on the concrete floor of Stan and Kyle's apartment the next evening, eating a tagine of merguez and harissa-scented carrots from a steaming vessel that rested on a towel. There was a loaf of baguette, and it reminded Craig of his favorite bakery in Denver. He mentioned this casually, sopping up spicy, murky broth with a warm crust.

"Yes," said Stan, as he poured Kyle a glass of red wine.

"That's ours," said Kyle. "Well, not ours. I mean, Stan's."

"You own that bakery?" Craig asked, eyes wide.

"No," said Stan.

"He's the culinary director," said Kyle. "I was the business director for the capital group that owns the bakery until I got a job with Chipotle."

"Chipotle?"

"Yes. But I'm quitting that as soon as our place gets off the ground, obviously."

"How are you opening a restaurant? Wait, never mind, I don't care."

"Well, we lined up some investors—"

"Kyle, he said he didn't care."

"Look," said Kyle. "You like the baguette?"

"I buy these stupid baguettes all the time," said Craig, "so, yes."

"That's great," said Stan.

"So, we were really hoping you'd help us decorate this apartment."

In the middle of chewing, the baguette somehow began to taste like an obligation, which was weird because Craig thought of food in very literal and non-allegorical terms. "So you haven't bought a bed yet." It should have been obvious; after all, here they were eating a restaurant-quality meal on the floor.

"We got a queen-sized mattress but nothing to put it on," said Kyle. "Except the stupid box spring it came with."

"It would be doing us a serious favor, so we'd like to take you out to brunch."

"We could make a day of it," said Kyle, "this weekend."

"Do you guys not have any actual friends?"

"That's so rude." Kyle angrily tore off a hunk of baguette. "Of course we have friends! They're just tasteless and horrible."

"Uh huh."

"We're just trying to be nice," said Stan, and he sounded a bit hurt.

Craig was unused to people being nice to him, genuinely. He had dealt with many clients, contractors, and suppliers in a cordial yet professional way, but that was hardly the same thing; his parents had been about as distant as it was possible to be while living under the same roof. Which wasn't to say that they had been bad or uncaring, mean or unloving. But he couldn't describe them as "nice" and it was hard to know what Stan _really_ meant by that. Surely he didn't mean _kindness_, because here they were, asking Craig to spend his weekend on the thankless task of — what, helping them pick out a sofa? Craig did not even consider Stan and Kyle especially nice people themselves. His worst and strongest childhood memories involved them getting him into serious trouble. Sometimes as a kid he had felt as if he were a recurring character on a 60-minute drama on which Stan and Kyle and their friends were a central feature. They had both tended to act like put-upon heroines resistant to being rescued, insisting upon doing it themselves. Craig had always had his own friends in grade school and into high school, but he had rapidly detached from everyone once Neville had commandeered his attention. Since then he had more or less concentrated on his work.

He found himself saying, "Sure. I'll go with you guys to brunch."

* * *

><p>On Saturday morning — Stan's day off, Craig learned — they sat down for a 10 a.m. reservation at a small teashop in the city. It was in a rustic old bungalow, untreated floorboards and exposed brick walls. Craig had neither been there nor heard of it, though Stan described it as an "industry hangout."<p>

"We're stealing the pastry chef," Kyle bragged.

"Are you serious?" Stan asked. "Don't talk about that."

"She's good."

"Kyle, dude. Calm down." Kyle then sulked until he ordered.

The menu was small, with only four dishes: a spring vegetable timbale with an herb salad and ricotta salata; buckwheat "johnnycakes" with rhubarb compote, honeyed mascarpone; chia pudding, "rustic" house granola, macerated strawberry; steak and coddled eggs, truffled griddle potato "cake," chicory-scented carrot hash, hunk of baguette. "They use our baguettes," Kyle said. He had gotten the steak and eggs. This was an enormous plate of food, autumn colors in the hash and thyme-flecked eggs. Stan ordered the chia pudding, which was what Craig had wanted. For just a moment Craig felt weird about that, but he then decided that if someone was stealing the pastry chef from this restaurant it might be smarter than a mere faux-pas to copy his order. Ultimately the chia-seed pudding was good, a rich custard of delicate textures married to the strawberries. The granola was full of pepitas and appropriately salty. Craig ordered a cortado and smiled at the fussy mother-of-pearl teacup it came served in.

"This place is perfect," Kyle gushed, letting Stan co-dependently carve his steak and sneak a bite. "It hasn't broken yet. Aren't you impressed?"

"I'll tell you when I'm impressed," said Craig. "Don't worry about that."

"We really hope you can help us," said Stan.

"I don't know what you want from me."

"Your perspective," said Kyle.

"We don't know what we're doing."

"We've never furnished an apartment before."

"Well," said Craig, "I wish you the best of luck." And he did, because he felt wishing them luck might absolve him from his forced trip to Crate and Barrel at Cherry Creek directly following the meal. Still, he was grateful when the chef came over, shook Stan's hand, and announced gregariously that the meal was on the house.

"We couldn't," Kyle cried, in a tone that definitely implied he would take as many free meals as he could get. "We're just so pleased with everything, honestly. We brought our friend, see?" He gave a limp gesture toward Craig, who was leaning back in his iron-slatted chair, arms crossed.

"Great place you have here." Craig sat up and shook the guy's hand. He was a somewhat burly man with very built arms, his T-shirt nearly busting at the width of them. For a moment it felt to Craig as if perhaps he was being set up with this guy romantically, but the way he shook Craig's hand and said, "Thanks, yo," was pretty straight, unmistakably. Still Kyle sat there nodding in appraisal, as if he might be picturing the two of them together. Stan seemed more detached, elbow on the table, drinking his black coffee with a cautious eye toward Kyle. The dynamic between them was fascinating, in that they seemed to relate almost like partners in a television legal firm, rather than spouses or whatever. Craig had not managed to unlock the specifics of their relationship, though he also didn't care. The chef chatted with Stan for a moment about a farmer's market Craig had visited once and personally deemed overrated. Stan had become very animated and was discussing Sugarloaf Farms' crop of watermelon radishes.

"I prefer the sunchokes," said the chef.

"I could grow sunchokes on my _balcony_," Stan replied, which only said to Craig that perhaps he might soon have sunchokes growing on the balcony next to him, and maybe he didn't want that.

"That's right!" The chef smacked his forehead as if suddenly remembering: "The new place!"

Craig looked to Kyle, hoping to communicate something like "how can you stand this?" Yet Kyle just grinned and nodded, a lecherous look on his face. He was still soaking up some of the au jus and yolk from his plate with baguette scraps.

It did not take long for Craig to realize that the worst thing about a free meal was that the check never came, which meant there was no natural place to pause, finish, and leave. So an hour melted into two hours as Stan ordered another coffee.

"Didn't you want to buy furniture?" Craig asked.

"We have all day!" Kyle insisted. He had asked for another menu and was reading it over, despite the fact there were only four things on it. Ultimately he ordered a latte.

"I tend not to idle."

"Just relax," Kyle chided.

"You are so unrelaxed I could play you like a violin."

"What?"

"You're high-strung," said Craig. "Lots of tension."

"That's not true!"

Stan merely shrugged at the suggestion, sipping his coffee.

"What is your deal, anyway?" Kyle asked.

"I was hoping you'd clarify what my deal was here."

"No! I mean, Craig, what do you do with your life?"

"I am an interior designer," said Craig. "I thought that was why you asked me to get involved in this _deal_ in the first place."

"Yes, but what are your, you know — goals?"

"To help you pick out at least one piece of furniture, and then go home."

"In life!"

Craig looked at Kyle, dumbfounded. "I don't understand."

"Don't you have anything going on? Are you dating anyone?"

"No."

"But — didn't you sleep with Clyde?"

"I did."

"So are you guys, like, dating?"

"No."

"Oh." Kyle scooped some foam off the top of his latte with two fingers. "That was all I wanted to know."

"Okay. Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you care who I'm dating?"

"Just making small talk."

"I don't believe you."

"You should!"

"Kyle," said Stan, "leave him alone. Stay out of his business."

"I'm not _in_ it, I'm curious! What happened with that?"

"With what, with Clyde?"

Kyle nodded.

"Well, we slept together and went out once, and then I chose not to see him again."

"Why not?"

"Why not? Because he is a hot mess. Didn't you get the story from Clyde already?"

"Well, yes. But now I want it from you!"

"That's enough, Kyle."

"Stan, shut up."

"Man, he doesn't want to talk about it," Stan said. "Leave him alone."

"I'll talk about it," said Craig. "It's very simple. He's a big fat closeted baby. Why should I have to justify not wanting that? To you, of all people, Kyle?"

"We bought you brunch!" Kyle cried.

"No, you didn't," said Craig. "It was free." He stood up and pushed his chair back. "I'll bide my time outside until you're done with your coffees."

He had expected them to get up and follow him out, but to Craig's great surprise they took their damn time, leaving Craig to sit on the steps and watch the late-morning traffic pick up. He wondered why nearly anyone else couldn't have bought the apartment next to his.

* * *

><p>Tensions were high in the car, with Kyle blathering frantically about how rude of Craig it was to walk out on their brunch. Craig made no excuses, choosing to stay silent until they arrived at Crate and Barrel. These were not his people, a fact of which he was highly conscious. They gravitated toward the ugliest couch.<p>

"No," Craig decreed. "No, you will not buy this." It was chartreuse and unbalanced, with a wide and deep seat against a shallow, stunted back, flanked by scroll arms and heavy, ornate legs.

"Why not?" Kyle sat down on it, crossing his arms. "It feels regal."

"Sure. But your apartment is not regal. It's an industrial great room."

"So?"

"So, don't buy a stumpy little green sofa. Don't buy any green sofa."

"Why not?"

"Because you want to accessorize with color and let your big pieces be neutral. Because you will end up without enough furniture to actively fill your space and end up buying a dozen smaller crappier pieces, none of which go together. You need one big sectional couch to 'anchor' the space, let's say, and that's it. One big sectional couch."

"That's it?"

"You may add a large cocktail table and an interesting floor lamp."

"Seriously?" Kyle asked.

"Yes. I'm serious."

"Well, great! Thanks a lot, that's a ton of help!" Kyle got up, pulling his purse off the floor. "My whole life all I wanted was a green couch!"

"You are a man of very simple wants, then," said Craig.

"Ugh!" Kyle whirled around and stalked off into the store.

"I didn't like this couch anyway." Stan then went chasing after Kyle. Craig watched him stride away, marching with his arms out on a deluded mission to reign in Kyle's passions.

"Good luck with that," Craig said aloud, to no one.

He wandered through the store, keeping near the front in case Stan and Kyle decided to storm off without him, leaving Craig stranded in Denver. He fingered all of the table linens, marveling at the ones he found high-quality yet overpriced and lamenting the cheap dyes on most items. It was a shame he had no one to entertain for; perhaps he'd offer to host Thanksgiving this year. A vision of his sister's toddlers choking his bromeliads and smearing their greasy fingers on his stainless steel appliances dissuaded him before these thoughts gained further traction. Perhaps when they were older.

Tucked into a corner in the front of the shop, but off to the side, Craig spied the perfect couch for Stan and Kyle: it was rectangular and boxy, comprising many sections, including a louche central ottoman that doubled as a cocktail table. It sat upon a brushed aluminum frame and, most fitting, it was not a green couch in and of itself but there was green in the weave of the heavy, structured canvas the floor model came in. It would pick up other greens in the room without being green itself; the ultimate effect was that of a very commanding beige, neutral to the point of character without going further. It was not something Craig _liked_, but he liked it for Stan and Kyle. He hunted them down in the store and brought them to see it.

"This is okay," said Stan.

"No," said Kyle. "No, uh-uh. No way."

"What's wrong with it?"

"I want a sofa, Craig," Kyle whined. "I want something people want to sit on. I want something you could pose with in your family portrait."

"Family portrait?" Stan asked.

"God, it's like you barely know me."

"I don't know you at all," said Craig. "Which is why it's so weird that you asked me to come shopping with you."

"Look," said Stan, "I'm fine with this. It's without objectionable qualities."

"A nice piece of furniture should be divisive," said Kyle.

"Normally I'd agree with you. But that's not what you want."

"How dare you tell me what I want!"

"You invited me along," said Craig.

"You did, dude."

"Oh, _shut up_, Stan."

"How about this." Craig sat down on the sofa. "Tell me three things you like about this couch."

"I don't like it," said Kyle.

"Fine. But what are three things you like _about_ it?"

"I like the color," said Stan.

"Okay." Craig patted the cushion next to him.

Reluctantly, Stan sat down. "I like the shape. I like that it's simple. There's no wacky ornament happening. I like that it's plain."

"I hate that aspect!"

"Well, what's something that you like about it?"

Kyle stood there with his arms crossed. "If I _had_ to pick? I guess the, um. How do I put this? It feels expensive."

Craig laughed. "Yes. It is expensive. A couch is the most important thing you'll buy for your house. You'll never get rid of it. You'll reupholster it and you'll move the sections into different rooms and you'll eventually get sick of it and let it bother you when you stare at and think about your worst life decisions. So don't fucking pick some awful scroll-armed piece of shit because that'll be more expensive to reupholster, it can't be split into sections if you move and can't fit it in your new place, and above all else you'll forever powerfully associate it with this afternoon at Crate and Barrel. The good news is that you can look at couches today and figure out what you're looking for, then figure it out over the next few weeks—"

"We were planning on buying a couch today," said Kyle.

"Okay. Why?"

"We need to furnish our apartment!"

"Yeah. But not today."

"Yes today!"

"Have you considered one of those rooms-to-go stores? They sell you a whole room. To go."

"No! I want nice furniture for my grown-up apartment! Surely you understand that, Craig!"

"I understand that you are a 30-year-old man having a tantrum in a Crate and Barrel," said Craig.

Stan stood up and put an arm around Kyle's shoulders. "Maybe Craig is right," he said, softly. "It won't kill us if we make a list of things we like in the store and then go home, think about it—"

"_Stan_," Kyle said, in such a small and pleading voice that it made Craig want to apologize for having said that thing about Kyle having a tantrum. Though he totally _was_ and this was infuriating. This was _exactly_ why Craig had dreaded the thought of their moving in near him.

"I know, I _know_." Stan looped his arms around Kyle's waist, pulling him near. "I know it's hard but it's all going to work out."

"How is it going to work out? People keep telling me I can't have what I want."

"Look," said Craig. "Nobody gets what they want."

They ignored him. "We just have to compromise sometimes, okay?" Stan rocked Kyle gently, kissing his shoulder. Things had gone from law firm to gay in about 30 seconds. Craig was nonplussed. "We'll come back to couches. Let's look at stools for our kitchen island."

"Okay." Kyle's posture improved and he slipped out of Stan's arms, straightening out his blazer. He smoothed out some of his curly hair. "I like the idea of sitting at the counter while Stan cooks, so I want something comfortable."

"So you want something comfortable," Craig repeated.

"Yes," said Kyle. "But we need something you can wipe down. Because it's the kitchen."

This sounded reasonable enough to Craig, and he stood up. "Stools are over here," he said. They followed right behind him.

* * *

><p>Stan and Kyle bought everything save a couch that afternoon. "We'll think about that one," Kyle said, getting back into the car. It was afternoon now and the day had become cloudy.<p>

Despite having done nothing but eat chia seed pudding and float through Crate and Barrel, Craig felt exhausted. He wilted into the backseat of their car, a bulbous floor sample lamp on his lap. "Well," he said, unprompted, "I hope this was useful to you."

Stan said, "Yeah, thanks. I think so."

Kyle said, "We'll see."

"You guys got some okay stuff."

"Just okay?" Kyle asked.

"I only care about the kitchen."

"Jesus, Stan, you would. Could you please try to feign excitement over furnishing our apartment?"

"Wouldn't you prefer I let you do whatever you wanted?"

"I'm just listening to Craig!"

"I don't actually care how you guys furnish your apartment."

"We have to live with this stuff forever!"

"Not forever, Kyle, it's just furniture."

"The furniture you put in your home relates _very closely_ to how you are perceived."

"That is true," said Craig. He looked out the window now that they were on the highway. He had lived in Denver for nearly 10 years and leaving it made him somewhat anxious. The arguing in the car did not help.

"Watch your speed."

"I am watching my speed."

"I just don't want you to get pulled over."

"When I have I ever been pulled over? I'm driving the same speed as everyone else."

"Well, everyone else is an r-tard, so be careful, is all I'm saying!"

"Why _wouldn't_ I be careful?"

"I don't know, Stan! It's just a thing people say."

Slouching against the window, Craig exhaled all the tension he seemed to be feeling. These guys were idiots. When he stepped out of the car he'd never have to deal with them again. Sure, they lived next door, but Craig had a peephole. He didn't have to answer for them. It wasn't, like, some kind of rule. They could take their clean-wiping kitchen stools and chia seed pudding and driving the same speed as other people on the highway and shove it.

Around the time they were rolling back into town, Kyle turned down the volume on the radio, contorted in his seat so that he was facing Craig, and said, "We should do this again."

On impulse, Craig just said, "Okay."

"And um." Kyle gripped the back of his seat, his weird old-woman hair falling into his eyes. He brushed it away with a well-manicured hand, trembling. "Would you like to fuck me?"

"Excuse me?" Craig asked.

Stan instinctively veered out of the road and parked the car at the curb. They were on a street of houses near the old playground. Craig had not been friends with anyone who lived on that street growing up, though this wasn't far from the street they'd all lived on growing up, which Clyde still lived on now. "Kyle, Jesus," said Stan. "Really?"

"That was the deal!" Kyle whipped around almost as if he had forgotten Craig was sitting there, let alone that he had just asked Craig to have sex with him, maybe? "I get to pick whoever I want!"

"And you want _Craig_?"

"I'm flattered." Craig unbuckled his seatbelt. "Look, maybe I'll just … walk home."

"That's stupid," said Stan, "we're going to the same place."

"Don't remind me," Craig replied.

"Look," said Kyle. "You're single, right?"

"Yes. But that's doesn't mean I want to fuck you."

"Are you not attracted to me?"

"Um." It was weird, because Craig had to admit that he was, a little. Stan he could take or leave, but Kyle had a cute ass that waggled behind him when he walked, perhaps because Kyle walked with specific intent to cause his ass and, to a lesser extent, his hips to waggle. It was performative in a way that Craig did find attractive, though no one could argue that the offer was being made in an appealing manner. "Would Stan be there?"

"Not if I can help it."

"Yes," said Kyle, "he'll be there."

"Um. Can I have some time to think about it?"

"I guess," said Kyle, "though I'm horny _now_."

"Shopping for furniture makes you horny?"

"No! But I've been thinking about you fucking me all day."

"Jesus Christ," said Stan, and he leaned his head on his arms, folded over the steering wheel.

Craig cleared his throat. "Here is the thing," he said. "The offer is theoretically intriguing. But I don't like to fuck guys." Though it was quiet in South Park, generally, an occasional mother with a double-stroller did jog by, or a monster SUV would roll down the street, twice as fast as the speed limit. It was very quiet in the car and the activity of weekend life outside the window could be shocking. "If you're looking to get topped I'm no help there."

"Do you like to bottom?" Kyle asked. "Stan would fuck you."

Raising his head, Stan sighed. "I did not sign up for that."

"But you'll do it because you love me!"

"Look," said Craig, "I don't know what you guys have going on between you, but I am not into that, either." Not so much because he did not like to be fucked, though he had certainly found it enjoyable with his lighting guy. The idea of Stan being cajoled into fucking him did not strike Craig as fun. Perhaps it was because of the dubious consent issue, though he was also just not that into Stan.

"That's okay." Kyle brushed some hair from his eyes and made a disappointed face. "I probably wouldn't be into that anyway." To Stan, he said, "I don't know that I'd want to watch you fuck someone else."

"I don't _want_ to fuck anyone else!"

For a moment there was silence in the car, just as the mother of an old high school classmate, Bebe Stevens, went power-walking by. Bebe had gone to the University of Minnesota for college and returned from Minneapolis only at Christmastime, last year with an engagement ring and a bland fiancé from Connecticut, the diamond uncharacteristically small. Her mother glided down the sidewalk with determination, too much eye shadow to be taken seriously, her bosom jerking in her windbreaker with every step. She had weights in her hands and Craig wished he had one, too, for he might be able to bash the window open and climb out of it, fleeing. For all he had been back in town for several years now, this was the moment when Craig decided moving home had been a bad decision, late in the afternoon as Stan and Kyle propositioned him for sex.

"What if you just watched?" Kyle asked.

Craig tore his eyes off of Mrs. Stevens' ass as it strode away. "Watched what?"

"Stan fucking me."

Good taste and common sense demanded that Craig decline the offer, yet his lingering curiosity over what Kyle might look like naked forced him to sigh and say, "Okay."

It did not take long for that curiosity to be satisfied. Kyle tore off his clothes once he walked into the door, told Craig to put the lamp down, and barked at Stan to wait until later to empty their shopping bags. "But, there's towels in there," said Stan. "What if we need those?"

"Wait until later!" Kyle was shaking with nervous impatience, his clothing a pile at his feet. Craig had assumed once naked he would curl up or hold his hands across his middle like a sort-of maiden, but Kyle but his hands on his cushy hips and grinned, his half-hard dick just visible from under its cover of untrimmed, voluminous hair. Craig had never seen a man, in porn or real life, with so much and so prominent a crop of untrimmed pubic hair. It crept down the insides of his thighs and tapered up his soft stomach to his navel, thinning but without losing much of its spread. "Do you like it?" Kyle asked.

Craig needed a moment to grasp that the question was for him. "I do," he said. He had most certainly not been turned on like this at Crate and Barrel, but now he was hard and conscious of it. He stood fully clothed in the open, mostly unfurnished space of the big apartment, and yet Kyle thrust his nude chest forward like he knew what he wanted while Stan just stood there trembling.

"Good." Kyle crossed his arms over his chest and looked down. When he lifted his head again he was laughing. "I always wanted to do something like this."

His round ass was bedazzled with cellulite, though it was perkier than Clyde's, or any ass Craig had ever seen. He sounded pretty when he whined, when he arced, when he curled underneath Stan and wrapped his thick, hairy legs out from under Stan's thrusting hips and around Stan's waist. His heel knocked into his ankle, he said, "Ow," and then he whined for Stan to fuck him until it dissolved into inarticulate gasping. Craig was pleased he was no part of this, for there was room between Stan and Kyle neither literally nor figuratively; their bodies fit together expressly well, like nesting dolls. Like the pit in a nectarine; you'd get your hands dirty forcing these intractable bits apart. It was poetic and awkward; they moved together like they knew what they were doing, and yet they were doing it on a mattress on the floor. Craig sat with his arms crossed and his back to the wall of their loft bedroom, intrigued and repelled.

A moment came when Kyle tore his lips from Stan's and looked at Craig, catching his breath. "Oh," he said, "I'm sorry, are we boring you?"

"No."

"You could touch yourself, or something."

"Kyle, don't tell him what to do."

"Is that an order?"

Stan thought about it and said, "Yes." There was a lot of tussling and a lot of stopping and starting. Stan's nondescript body did nothing for Craig, but Kyle's was fascinating. Craig held his erection through his jeans until he finally got a peek at Kyle's ass being penetrated, cheeks spread open with one hand, then two. Stan and Kyle collapsed together, their backs to Craig like he wasn't there.

Craig felt used, but turned on anyway. These guys and their shit! He jerked off angrily, trying to get the best possible view of Kyle's ass. It was meant to be fucked, that much was clear, and Craig felt bad that he wasn't willing to do it. Then again he couldn't imagine Kyle fucking anyone, either. The more Craig tried to improve his view the more of Stan got in the way, until Craig finally decided it was preferable to shut his eyes against the offensive sight of Stan's balls and just think about Kyle's ass sitting in front of him unobstructed. It became increasingly difficult as Craig found he was able to think only of Clyde. Craig came to a vision of Clyde's fat dick. Though Craig had to admit to himself that he thought of Clyde's dick often, the specifics of it deserted him, leaving only a general impression of its girth and the fact that it had been arousing in some dimension, though other than "thick" Craig no longer remembered what those dimensions had been. Anyway, it was enough to get him off. He opened his eyes to Stan and Kyle, continuing to go at it.

"You guys are taking forever." He wiped his hand off on his jeans. It wasn't dignified, but nothing about this was. Craig longed to hear Kyle's response to this, but it wasn't forthcoming. Stan had flipped Kyle onto his back and they were fucking in missionary position. It was taking well longer than any single sex act in which Craig had ever participated. He was of half a mind to leave; after all, his bedroom was on the other side of the wall against which he was leaning. But something about walking out on your neighbors fucking felt seriously déclassé. Craig willed himself to stare at Stan's hairy ass until they finished, applauding Kyle's theatrical cries of "I'm coming!" with a sarcastic slow clap.

"That's so rude," Kyle panted.

"No," said Craig, "it would have been rude to leave. I sat here and watched you get pleasured for—" He glanced around, unsure of the time. "Quite a while."

"Tell me you didn't enjoy it," said Kyle.

"It was interesting."

Stan grunted, pushing himself off the bed. "Now I guess we can die knowing what Craig Tucker thinks of our sex life."

"_Stan_."

About to disappear into the bathroom, Stan turned and Craig got a full-on view of his relatively normative, softening dick. It looked vaguely threatening framed in straight black hair, and sort of ridiculous, slick with frothy post-sex wetness. The whole scene was objectively revolting, but it did nothing for Craig either way. He watched Stan lean over Kyle and kiss him deeply, cupping Kyle's chin.

When Stan had disappeared into the bathroom Kyle rolled onto his side with an arm stretched out, fluids leaking from his ass.

"I hope those aren't nice sheets."

"They're fine." Kyle grabbed for the covers and pulled them over his limp body. He curled into the comforter like a security blanket. "They're from Stan's parents. Maybe they were nice once, I don't know."

Behind the bathroom door, the shower started. Craig figured he might be free to go now, but something about leaving Kyle alone felt ... well, not quite rude. _Undesirable_. "I put towels down if I'm going to have sex. Or I would. If I were going to have sex."

"When was the last time you had sex?"

"Not for a while."

"Not since Clyde?"

"Why do you care about that?"

"It's interesting to me."

"Yes," said Craig. "I see that. Why?"

"You know," said Kyle, "childhood friends falling in love is relevant to my interests. Didn't you live next door to him?"

"You know I did. Who said I was in love with him? We hooked up once."

"Whatever," said Kyle, "you know what I mean. It's just ... interesting to me."

"We didn't even _do it_, if you must know."

"Was it good?"

Craig shrugged. He gestured to the bathroom door. "Was_ that_?"

"It _was_ good, but it wasn't what I wanted. Don't take this the wrong way, but it's daunting, thinking I'll never get to do it with anyone else. Why don't you top? Have you ever even tried it?"

"Yeah. Almost exclusively. But I'm put off by it."

"Me too," said Kyle. "Is it the pressure? To do a good job, I mean? I hate the idea of fucking it up somehow, of being bad at it."

"Everything you do gets better with practice," Craig said. "Except for _that_. Either you're into it or you're not. I'm not. My ex—"

"The performance artist?"

"No. He studied puppets," said Craig. "He didn't do much performing himself. Literally. He just expected me to fuck him. I mean that literally too. He was my college advisor, and he didn't give me much choice."

Kyle sat up, putting a hand to his mouth. "Jesus, Craig!"

"It wasn't like that exactly. He didn't have to force me. But he was in a position of power, and I sort of liked him, so it didn't occur to me that I didn't have to top him, or even that I didn't have to sleep with him. And I was a little shit and it seemed like a cool little shit thing to do. At the time I had no preference. I was a virgin. I got deep into that relationship before I realized I didn't like topping, though I'm still not sure if it's because he expected me to do it, or if I really just don't enjoy it. Anyway, I never want to do it again. Now I'm single and I can choose which sex acts I want to participate in." Craig stood, towering over Kyle and the mattress on the floor. "I chose to be here," he said. "It was weird. I could have left during. But I didn't."

"I know! I appreciate it."

"I don't want to do it again."

"It was a one-time thing." Kyle nodded, agreeing.

"I'll see you around." Just as Craig said this, he heard the shower go off. "In the building or whatever."

"Or whatever!" There was some strain in Kyle's voice. "You're okay, Craig. Thanks for being cool."

"I'm not cool and I don't care if you think I'm okay. Tell Stan I said thanks for the brunch. It was a goddamn delight." Craig turned and walked down the stairs, careful not to hurry from the apartment. As he walked he heard Stan come out of the bathroom, and perhaps Craig caught a glimpse of Stan coming to the edge of the loft to make sure Craig did not steal anything on the way out. Or perhaps it was a figure of his imagination. In any event, Craig patted his pocket to make sure he had his keys; he did. He then let himself out without slamming the door, and padded up to his own. At home, he shed his clothes at the foot of his bed and crawled into it without dinner.


	3. Chapter 3

Craig told himself that he was not disturbed by his recent encounters with Stan and Kyle, and sure enough he made certain not to think about it or talk about it to anyone. Talking about it was easily avoided, since he'd have to go out of his way to find someone to give this information, unless he wanted to discuss it with his mother, which he didn't. To avoid thinking about it he threw himself into his work, driving to Albuquerque to meet with a woman who dealt Acoma pottery. Craig did not like this stuff, but his client claimed 1/16 Acoma heritage and wished to install some high-quality vessels in his office. Craig neither enjoyed driving nor enjoyed going on long trips out of town for his clients, but for the first time in a while Craig felt he needed to get out of not just South Park, but Colorado in general.

On the drive back, fittingly near Pueblo, a freak hail storm developed and he was forced out of the car and into a hotel room for the night. These roadside hotels were decent enough, though the whole place felt cheap, as if the sheets were made of plastic. He found himself ordering a pizza and wishing he were not merely somewhere else, but some_one_ else entirely. The hail cracked against the windows and Craig pulled the curtains open so that he could watch it fall on his car down below. In the dark it was difficult to see any landscape, but with nothing to read and no one to talk to it was stare at the window or entertain his own thoughts. He wondered what sort of pompous piece of shit asshole clung to the idea of native heritage while jerking off alone in an office in his Buell Mansion chateau? As a conscious enabler Craig tried not to feel _too_ bad about it, but it was get angry or think about his real problems. Eventually he turned on the television and fell asleep to a depressing HBO documentary about military contractors in Afghanistan. He must have woken up and turned it off sometime in the night, for the TV was no longer blaring when he roused at 8, his bill slipped under the door. Without changing his clothes — the bags were still in the car — he got up and left.

When Craig got home he was determined to get back to work. He took a shower, changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and sat down at his dining room table with a double-shot of espresso. He opened the photo album the Albuquerque dealer had given him and began to study picture after picture of nearly identical Acoma pots. Each was busy and nonsensical to Craig, their handsome neutral tones defeated by the multitude of options. It was his job to find 10 of these for his client, who intended to select seven for the office. The finder's fee was generous but this work was really grating. He preferred to tell rich idiots about the virtues of hardwood versus carpet. (Always hardwood, Craig believed.)

He was shocked when his phone rang, for several reasons, not the least of which was that it was Saturday and he did not allow his clients to contact him over the weekend, despite the fact that he was working. Though he missed the call when he dug it out of the pocket of his dirty pair of jeans, it turned out to have been from his mother.

When he called her back, she'd been crying. "It's grandma," she said.

"What about her?"

"She's dead!" Then his mother erupted into tears again.

"Okay." Craig sighed, deeply. "I'm coming over."

So this was grief, and Craig was in mourning. Being Catholic, the family shifted into a week-long state of delay, Craig's embalmed grandmother painted like a streetwalker in an open casket at the funeral home on Main Street, her corpulent body settled into the box in such a tight and comprehensive way that it was obvious she was not coming out of there, ever. Craig didn't cry, but he did call up his Daves and put off their lunch meeting in Denver on Thursday. He might have gone, but he didn't feel like eating. Instead, he sat at his parents' kitchen table, listening to his mother complain about how "that bitch Linda Stotch" hadn't even bothered to send over a carrot cake or something: "When she lost _her_ mother I sent her a tuna noodle casserole!" Craig's father was upset in a more normative way, his bloated old face tear-stained as he recounted for the kids about how Grandma had worked in a beef-packing plant before she was married.

"Yeah," Craig agreed. "She was okay."

It wasn't until a week after the funeral that Craig thought of the piano. "So when do you think I can bring it over to my place?" he asked his mother.

"What? Oh. The piano." She was sipping a pino grigio and flipping through the condolence cards to which Craig would ostensibly help her reply. "I think she left it to the children."

"The who?"

"Your sister's children."

"Excuse me," said Craig. "You must be mistaken, because that is _my_ piano."

"Mmm, I don't think so," said his mother. "But we'll look at the will—"

Craig was already fuming — justifiably, he felt. And as the week went on he became increasingly anxious, pacing around the house, in the spot where his piano was meant to settle. Here was a huge goddamn hole in this décor, and he was supposed to be an interior designer, and there was no fucking piano, just a big empty space with nothing in it. He got on the phone with his sister. "I want that piano," he told her, to the point. "Grandma told me I could have it."

"Well," she said, like it was up for debate. "Maybe she did, but that's not what it says in the will."

"Fuck the will. That's my piano."

"Not according to her will. My kids are taking lessons! I got them a teacher."

"Excuse me? They're 3. Buy your kids a damn piano. She was my grandmother, too, and I want her piano."

"Craig, you don't even _play_ piano."

"Where am I supposed to put my damn canapés? "

"What?"

"They're little snacks. Little appetizers. I have been planning to serve some, but I've been waiting to put them on my piano."

"It's not your piano," she said, "and what's this about serving food off of it? Jesus, Craig, it's an _instrument_, not a buffet."

"Don't police my piano usage!"

"Fine, because I don't have to, because Grandma left it to me and the kids. Period. Final."

"Fuck you," he said.

"Fuck you back. This conversation is over." She hung up the phone, and that was it. Here it was, real grief. His grandmother was dead and she'd left her piano for a pair of snot-nosed brats to bang on. As if Craig didn't even matter; as if he didn't even count. He wanted to be angry, or even surprised, but mostly he just felt empty.

Craig ate a light, early dinner of quinoa and kimchi over arugula, accompanied by an entire bottle of wine. He sat in front of the binder of Acoma pots, splayed open on the dining room table, mocking him like the gaping mouth of a victorious and spoiled little sister who, once again, had gotten just what she'd wanted while leaving Craig with nothing. His mood, and his feelings on this point, improved somewhat in the morning, but the loss of the piano stung intermittently in the coming weeks, until Craig realized that he might buy something else to put into the space. Maybe an installation of some kind; definitely not a piano.

* * *

><p>Things were going quite without incident leading up to Craig's birthday. He came home that afternoon from a grating and unenjoyable lunch with his mother to find a card taped to his door. It was no surprise who had left it there; the handwriting in which his name was scrawled bore a distinct similarity to inscriptions in many of his high school yearbooks:<p>

_Dear Craig, _Kyle had written, _Happy birthday! Stan and I are very pleased to be your neighbors. We love our new sectional couch and would love to make you a birthday dinner or at least buy you a birthday drink. We know the mixologist at The Collier_—

Craig folded the card and slid it back into the envelope. "Forget it," he said aloud, hoping Stan and/or Kyle would not be around to hear him. Now he was 31, single, living in his hometown and next door to the most obnoxious gay losers he knew in high school, and without any pianos and with a gaping empty space in his apartment. Things couldn't get any worse.

That evening, Clyde called.

"To what do I owe this..." Craig could not conceive of labelling it a 'pleasure.' "…phone call?"

"I wanted to wish you a happy birthday."

"Well, that's very sweet of you."

"Yeah," Clyde agreed. "How are things?"

"Not the best."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. My grandmother died and she gave her piano to some spoiled brats."

"Like — orphans?"

"No, Clyde, I didn't say _street urchins_." Craig sighed, the phone between his chin and shoulder as he reached for a wine glass. "Anyway, forget it. It's behind me. Thanks for the call." He was about to hang up, but was unable to do so immediately, owing to the bottle of wine in his hands and the precarious position of the phone wedged against his neck.

Clyde cleared his throat. "I came out to my dad."

"Good for you," said Craig.

"So I was thinking maybe I could take you out to dinner."

"Um."

"Like maybe tonight."

"Clyde, jesus." Craig set the bottle of wine down, and got his hand on his cell again, switching ears. "What if I'm busy tonight?"

"You're not."

"I'm not?"

"Well, not unless dinner with me counts."

"How dare you presume I'm not doing anything on the night of my birthday?"

"Presume nothing," said Clyde, "you don't do anything, man, you don't have any friends."

It was difficult for Craig to argue. "First you assume I have no plans on my birthday, then you tell me I have no friends. And this on top of the worst pick-up line ever? You're lucky I'm horny."

"Um." Clyde sounded caught off-guard, as if he hadn't been expecting this to work. "You are?"

"Totally. You should come over, if you remember where I live."

"Of course I remember where you live."

"Then come over! I need to get fucked, Clyde, jesus, do I have to spell everything out?" Craig hung up the phone and, feeling desperate, tossed it across the room, where it landed on a soft chair. He then went to fetch it, picked it up, and held it in his sweaty hand for a moment until it began to ring again.

"Um." It was Clyde. "Remind me where you live?"

With more patience than Craig knew he had, he slowly and calmly gave Clyde directions to his condo, including the code one needed to get inside and work the elevator. "And for the love of god," he added, "make sure you knock on the right door."

"Why?"

"Why? Well, besides the obvious — namely, that you should knock on the right door because that's where you're trying to go — I happen to live next to Stan and Kyle."

"Well, I like them."

"Just don't fuck up and knock on their door." Again, Craig hung up and found himself standing in the middle of the apartment with the phone in his hand. He had literally never been in this situation before, waiting for a man to show up for sex. What even? Craig considered going upstairs to change — into what? He was wearing jeans and a shirt, same as usual. He had no cologne, no makeup ... the idea of doing nothing made him feel strongly unprepared, and yet he was only waiting for Clyde. It wasn't like Craig had much heavy-lifting to do here in the pursuit of seduction. Better to sit on the couch and wait.

It was Craig's intention to get naked immediately, but Clyde showed up with a bouquet of long-stemmed red roses and a box of chocolate. Fucking Godiva. Craig shook the box, sighing. "You, um, didn't need to do this."

"Happy birthday," said Clyde.

"Just, why?"

Clyde was still holding the roses, but they fell to his side and he sloughed himself toward the couch. "May I sit down?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Nice place!"

"Oh my god." Now Craig closed the door and left the candy on the counter. "Are you insane? Where did you even get this stuff?"

"The mall. On the way home from work. They sell Godiva at Macy's."

"That's great, yeah. This shit doesn't make me want to have sex with you, you know?"

"No?"

"No."

"Well, why not?"

"I don't know," said Craig. "It's weird. I dislike being wooed."

"I'm wooing you?"

"Yeah, I mean." Craig picked up the box of chocolates and shook them.

"But, it's your birthday."

"Well, _that_ is not what I want. I don't even eat sugar!"

"What do you want?" Clyde asked.

Craig's heart nearly broke at how dismayed Clyde seemed to not know, exactly, what use he could be. "Come here." Craig grabbed Clyde's fat face in both hands and kissed him, just for a moment. "You're gonna fuck me," he said. "That's what I want."

"I've never done that before."

"That's okay." Craig let go. "I've only done it once. Bottoming, I mean. It's okay, we'll figure out." He was a little surprised at how calm he sounded, considering.

Before running upstairs Craig cracked open a bottle of red wine. Clyde sipped it nervously, and Craig eyed him to ensure he didn't spill any. When Clyde set the bottle down on the dresser Craig nearly bolted back downstairs for a coaster, but halted. He sat on the bed and pulled Clyde down, too. They kissed voraciously for a few minutes, the acid taste of cabernet passing between them.

Reaching down for Clyde's dick, Craig found it still half-soft, sluggish and heavy.

"I'm kind of nervous." Clyde buried his face against Craig's.

"Don't be."

"Well, that's easier said than done."

His mouth around Clyde's dick, Craig found topping from the bottom to be easier than topping from the top.

It wasn't a glorious first time, but Craig took comfort in the fact that it seemed this would be one of many future encounters. For one thing, Clyde was preternaturally calm, for a virgin or maybe just for Clyde. He lost his erection halfway through, apologized wetly, then slowly grew hard again while Craig kissed his flushed cheeks, clenching his ass around Clyde's dry cock so it wouldn't slip out. This was actually a great boon for Craig, because it made things last longer. He was sitting on Clyde's lap facing away, bouncing against Clyde's fat stomach at the small of his back. Clyde could jerk him off that way, greasy hands tugging while he breathed heavily, forehead to Craig's neck. For another thing, for all the unappealing sloppiness of this encounter, Craig realized he was barely drunk, had done almost nothing to end up in this position, and was a little sad when Clyde came and his spent seed threatened to trickle down Craig's thigh and onto the bedspread.

"Here. Um. Hold on." Clyde actually got up, went into the bathroom, and came back with a wad of toilet paper. He dabbed kindly at Craig's ass, a kind of motherly look on his face.

"It's okay, I got it." Skipping into the bathroom, Craig faced himself in the mirror. "That was okay," he said, like pronouncing it made it so. But actually, it just _was_, sort of fundamental.

So maybe Craig was a little hurt when he emerged from the bathroom and found Clyde putting on his pants.

"What are you doing?"

"Well, the dogs," said Clyde, like it wasn't a big deal.

"What about them?"

"I can't leave them alone all night. I have to walk them. I have to feed them."

"You're leaving me for your dogs?"

"My babies," Clyde said, like it was a correction of some kind. "They can't just be alone. I can't just leave them! They need me."

"Did it occur to you that maybe I might need you?"

"Um." Clyde stopped fastening his jeans. "Do you?"

"Well — not really."

"You could like, come over."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm standing naked in my own apartment. I'm not going to get dressed, go to your house, let some white-ass dogs sniff my come-smeared ass, sit around while you feed them, and then — what?"

"Watch TV?"

"I hate TV."

"You love TV," said Clyde. "You always loved TV. Why don't you have TV? What's this weird austerity thing where you don't even have a TV, which you love?"

"Ugh, okay, fine. If you're going, please just go."

"Okay." Without bothering to tuck in his billowy buttoned shirt, Clyde lumbered back down the stairs, taking the bottle of wine with him.

Naked, Craig crept down after Clyde, making sure he'd left it on the counter, with a coaster.

Clyde turned around at the front door and said, "I liked that."

"I did, too."

"I just — the dogs."

"I know, the dogs, I get it. Just, get out of here." Shocking himself, Craig pressed a kiss to Clyde's dry lips.

"Can we get dinner? Again?"

"I guess," said Craig, "in lieu of breakfast."

"That sounds nice."

Craig watched Clyde leave, a big thing getting smaller and smaller as he walked down the hallway, then waited for the elevator. Craig would have screamed, "Take the stairs!" but there were rules about noise after 8 p.m. in the building. Still naked, he almost hoped someone else walked by to see him peering half-hard out of the doorway. Anyone but Stan and Kyle.

No one did, which was a little disappointing.

* * *

><p>Christmas, the bane of Craig's existence. Especially this year, the lingering hurt of the piano fallout an unpleasant reminder that his family was terrible. He'd moved some plants back into the vacancy left by his grandest unrealized plans, but it felt hollow. Craig did not fully comprehend that the season was approaching until Clyde showed up to whisk him off to dinner with a full, candy-red poinsettia.<p>

"Since I figured you wouldn't appreciate flowers," he said.

Craig held it away from his body in both hands, the crinkle of metallic florist's wrapping sheathing the ugly plastic plot. "Are you shitting me?"

"No?"

Sighing, Craig invited Clyde in and treated him to a pre-dinner blow job. They were going to a chain Italian place in town, so what did it matter if the taste of overly sweet red sauce was marred by the sense memory of Clyde's jizz? Craig felt content when the mussels he ordered before the meal came soaking in a bath of creamy white sauce with hunks of bacon and the barest shreds of chive. Half-melted, translucent skins of parmesan came stuck to the shells.

Clyde recoiled from this dish in horror. "What the hell is this?"

"Well, it's supposed to be mussels."

"How do I eat them?"

"You don't know? Watch me." Craig fished one out with the stainless steel ladle, then used a tiny fork to pry the mollusk from its shell. "Then the shells go in here," he said, tossing it into the bowl provided for just such a purpose, "then you eat the mussel." The black-rimmed curves of its feminine form caught the light as he speared it. The thing was overly salty, a little chewy — but not _bad_, merely without any subtlety or grace. Craig buried his head in his hands under the dim lights of the dining room, annoyed at how the waiter had spooned cheese into their olive oil. It was minutes ago and it still bothered him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Craig sighed and finished his glass of white wine, bothered that he was going to drink tomorrow's caloric intake just to cope with this hour-long dinner. "Um." What to say? "How's your dad?"

"Uh, he's fine?"

"How'd he take it?"

"Take what?" A sopping crust of broth-soaked bread was disintegrating in Clyde's fingers.

Craig raised one doubtful eyebrow.

"Ohhh." Shoving the piece of bread into his mouth, Clyde said, "Well, he _told me_ he was okay with it, but I guess I'll find out." Clyde swallowed. "I'll see him over Christmas."

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to Phoenix."

"I've never been."

"It's fine." Clyde seemed entirely disinterested in the mussels and was focused on eating broth with bread. He spread a crust center-side-down in the dish, mopping up bits of bacon. "We could go some time."

"Well, that's okay, I'll pass." To Clyde's inquisitive look, Craig said, "I'm not going to visit your dad with you."

"He's always asking me about what happened to my little friends."

"Oh? Well, what are you going to tell him about me?"

Now Clyde became slightly sullen and cleared his throat. "I guess that depends on what you'd let me say."

"What _is_ there to say?" asked Craig. It was early December and the heat was on in the restaurant, and it added to his sense of overall unease. "Don't say anything, right? What else is there to report? 'Remember that kid, Craig? He let me fuck him.' 'That's nice, Clyde. Pass the—' What does your family eat for Christmas?"

"We go to this buffet at a huge hotel. There's nothing to pass."

"I wish my family would go out for Christmas. My mother can't cook."

"Why don't you cook?"

"What would I cook? I usually bring a pie. From Stan Marsh's fucking bakery, oh my god, how awful is that?"

"How is that awful? He makes a nice pie?"

"Just, shut up, Clyde. Ugh. When is that, three weeks? Ugh, I have no time to find a new place to get a pie."

"You could make a pie."

"I'm not baking a pie. I'm not buying lard. On principle."

"There are pre-made crusts."

"That shit is disgusting, it's all bleached with crap and processed and full of chemicals and shit, that's not what I'm having for Christmas."

Clyde reached for another piece of bread and said, "Stop being so contrary! Stan's nice, he'll make you a pie."

"There's no level on which you really get my issues with this whole thing." Craig reached for the wine bottle, which was empty, to his disappointment. "If you see the waiter, can you flag him down? We're out of wine."

"You flag him down," said Clyde. "You know what, I don't think there is any level on which your issues with 'this whole thing' even makes sense. Actually, what whole thing? Me?"

"No," said Craig, "or, yes, but—"

"Living next door to Stan and Kyle? They're nice people! I mean, kind of assholes, but—"

"—it's the whole South Park thing, like, what the fuck am I doing back here? How have I been here for years already? Jesus, I want to move back to Denver."

"Then move back to Denver!"

"With what fucking money, Clyde? It was only doable because I had some old man supporting my ass, ugh. Do you ever wonder how you destroyed your own life?"

"I don't believe I've destroyed my own life," said Clyde. "And I'm sad to hear you think you've ruined yours, maybe sad _and_ a little hurt, especially since I appear to be the catalyst for your misery? Anyway, I see the waiter, but I don't think I should get him."

"Why not?"

"Because you're kind of drunk."

"I'm not drunk, and what do you care if I get drunk?" He wasn't, but he did sort of get why Clyde might be annoyed by this. "If I do it'll be easier to shove your dick in me."

"Is that how that works?"

"Are you familiar with poppers?"

"Passingly." Clyde sighed, waving over their server.

Making out in Clyde's car after dinner, Craig dwelled on the existential angst he felt at his uncertainty over where to go. Clyde had huge dogs that would make Craig uncomfortable, but if they went to Craig's place Clyde would have to leave to feed the dogs. "Those dogs are bad for your sex life," Craig said stupidly, his hand half submerged in the slit in Clyde's boxers. This came out so drunkenly and so garbled that Craig was shocked, literally covering his mouth with his sweaty hand. It smelled faintly of Clyde's balls.

"What?"

"Just, you can't leave them alone but I want you to come back to my place."

"I can go back to your place," said Clyde, "but then I have to go home to feed them."

"No, that sucks."

"Well, just come back with me."

"No, that sucks too. They're weird, Clyde, I don't want them outside the door while we fuck."

"I can put them outside, but not all night. If you walk them with me—"

"I'm not walking two huge dogs, forget it."

"They're sweet."

"They're monsters." Sadly, that just reminded Craig of Clyde's dick, and he crumbled and reached for it and squeezed it like it was a stress ball, putting all of his effort against its half-hardness. "Okay, fine, just take me back to your place. I need to get fucked."

Twisting the ignition, Clyde said, "Sure."

It was hardly the best sex but Craig felt it was better than last time, Clyde fucking him slowly face-first into the bed. Lying in his afterglow, Craig was happy and warm and content. Sadly, this lasted only until Clyde flung Craig's underwear at him and said, "Okay, time to walk the dogs."

"I'm not walking the dogs."

"You promised."

"I am sure I didn't _promise_."

"Of course you did."

"Did I?"

Clyde was standing there naked on the bottom, his undershirt pulled back over his body, so long it just brushed the base of his fat, spent dick, which hung slackly from underneath the hem. Wanting to bury his face in it again, Craig got up and said "fine" and kissed Clyde's wet face and pulled on the underwear.

Downstairs, one of the dogs, let back into the house, promptly jumped on Craig, white hairs coating his nice black jeans.

"See, this is why I didn't want to do this." Bending over to pick single hairs off his pants, the other dog began to lick his face.

"That's Snowy." Clyde hunched down, pulling the dog off of Craig to clip on a collar. "And this is Whitey."

"You named a dog 'Whitey'?"

"He's white," said Clyde. "Come here, boy." As he was collared Whitey drooled on the carpet.

"You cannot _name_ a dog that. It doesn't matter what color he is."

"It's like if you had a dog and you called it 'Red,' which would be cute."

"Oh yeah? My sister's a redhead and when people call her 'Red' she's not such a fan."

"Well, she's a person! These are _dogs_."

"It's just awful," said Craig, and that was his last word on it.

Each dog panted through the snow; Clyde seemed to be dragging them along, and Craig followed. He did not know where they were going; he hoped it was not far. They crossed the street and passed the community center and the school. It was past bedtime, apparently, for the streets even in the center of town were largely empty, a few errant teens playing basketball here, a passing car there. Street lamps lit the way but the town felt deserted in a way it hadn't when Craig was teenager, as if the place were as old as he was, and as empty. This chilling thought forced him to stick more closely to Clyde.

"Where are we headed?" Craig asked.

"Stark's Pond," said Clyde. "I mean, the woods around it."

"Why?"

"So you don't have to pick up dog poop."

"I have no plans to pick up dog poop."

"Right, so, the woods," said Clyde. "I hate bending over to pick it up anyway. They can just go here and, you know."

"That's sick."

"Is it?"

"Well, yes!"

"It's just the woods."

"Clyde, kids _play_ in these woods."

"No they don't."

"_We_ played in these woods!"

With a mere shrug, Clyde shook it off.

"Jeez." Craig wanted to sit on the bench near the water and ignore this, but that would have meant sitting alone. "I mean, don't buy large dogs if you don't want to pick up after them. Let alone two!"

"I love them, though."

At this Craig merely rolled his eyes. "Whatever, okay."

"Well, that's why you _live_ in a place like South Park!"

"So you don't have to pick up after your humongous dogs?"

"Well, yeah. Right?"

"I'm so fundamentally upset by this entire enterprise," said Craig. "Now I have to take these pants to the dry cleaners. Dog hair never comes out."

Back at Clyde's, though, Craig was glad he had gone, because he slid into bed tired and cold but Clyde's body was warm; the sheets were soft and Clyde turned the thermostat up. It was so sickeningly typical and comfortable that Craig felt an initial sense of trepidation, but it dissipated against Clyde's skin. He woke up naturally to darkness in the master bedroom, sunlight sharp around the cracks between the wall and the curtains, sun painting the cheap carpet. For a moment Craig was disoriented, but then he saw he was with Clyde, still sleeping; then the dogs came in to wake them both, bounding up onto the bed. They licked Clyde face and showered him with affection, which he returned by cooing, "Hey, boys," and kissing their snouts.

"I need a shower," said Craig, "at home."

"You don't want to stick around for breakfast?"

"I need my pants dry cleaned." He almost kissed Clyde to say goodbye, but the thought of sticky, dry dog spit was too off-putting. "Call me later," he said, on his way out.

"I'll lock the door after you," said Clyde. "Thanks for last night."

"You paid, I should thank _you_. So, yeah. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"It was fun." Leaving the house Craig thought on why he'd said this, only to realize that, actually, it sort of had been, the insipid food and the insipid sex and the insipid dogs and all.

Craig was rewarded for his good attitude by running into his mother leaving the house.

"Well," she said, eyeing his pants.

"Don't even say it."

"Well, I'm thinking it," she said.

"That's fine, just don't _say_ it."

"Okay." She crossed her arms. "Craig, do you want a ride?"

"No, I think I'd prefer to walk home in the gutter on my own smelling like fucking giant dog."

"Okay," she said. "Well, it's my pleasure. I'm on the way to Sooper Foods."

So he climbed in with his mother, annoyed at the sloppy way she applied lip balm, as if just because it was clear she didn't have to follow the shape of her own mouth. She sat there rubbing it on with her pinky finger, the car running the whole time she stared into the vanity mirror.

"No judgment," she said.

He knew she meant it, which somehow served only to piss him off. "What's it like? You know, living next to Clyde."

"I don't know, he's a good neighbor. He leaves us alone, mostly. Tries to make small talk. He's a lot like Roger. Less outgoing, though."

"What about his mom?"

"Let's not talk about Betsy," said Laura Tucker.

"Well, Mom, why not? Just because she died we shouldn't talk about her?"

"He seems kind of stupid, like Betsy. There, you happy?"

"He's not stupid," Craig said. "He's just not very intellectual. He doesn't think."

"See, that's the sort of thing I _do_ judge."

"Oh? And who in this town would you prefer me dating?"

"Who said you should date anyone in South Park?" she asked. "_I_ didn't tell you to move back here."

"Who said I was _dating_ Clyde Donovan?"

"I think you just did."

"We're just sleeping together. Anyway, it's none of your business."

When they were parked outside of Craig's building, she pointedly said, "Everything in South Park is everyone's business. If you didn't learn that growing up then I guess I should reconsider my belief that I was a pretty decent mother."

He unbuckled his seatbelt. "I want my fucking piano."

"If only I had one to give you!"

Craig hesitated before getting out of the car, sitting next to his mother with his hand on the lock. "You know what's nice about Clyde? Sure, maybe he's a fat scared baby who can't get anything right and doesn't know jack shit about anything. But he makes me feel good about myself, or like — special, because he _wants _me. Ugh, what gay bullshit! Reduced to _this_."

"Oh, Craig," she said, like he was silly. "Why do you think you're not special? You were always wanted. More than anything."

"I don't think that's me you're referring to," he said. "Well, all right, I'm heading out." He opened the door before remembering to say, "Thanks for the lift."

"Bring that pie we like to Christmas."

"Yeah, yeah." He slammed the door shut and went inside for a shower.

All afternoon he worked idly, making some sketches for a new bride's redesigned townhouse. She was short on cash and kept pulling back on costs, and while Craig sympathized he resented the stilted way in which she handled this; if you didn't have the money what sense did it make to hire a designer to redo your condo? At the same time Craig would argue on-the-record that his wholesale connections made it worth her while. Still, she was very beige in most respects, not only in the way she wanted her apartment but the way she looked and dressed and the car she drove as well. Her husband was a banker. Wasn't everyone's? Craig didn't know any bankers but one some level he felt that, yes, metaphorically, in spirit, they were _all_ bankers. He got up and unwittingly dragged himself out into the hallway to knock next door.

Kyle answered, in an open knit cardigan that fell to his hips, brushing against his boxer shorts, shirtless. He was swirling a glass of white wine.

"You answer your door like this?"

"I heard you coming," he said. "That's the nice thing about sharing a wall, I guess. I heard you stomp all the way to the door and then I heard your door open and _then_ you knocked, so. You know what, once you've been naked with someone, what does it matter?" He took a sip of his wine. "I used to be more uptight, but, honestly."

"In high school there was some gossip that you threw a tantrum when some kid pissed in the pool at a waterpark."

"Not only did I not throw a tantrum, Craig, it was a _critical_ level of pee. And that was elementary school! Anyway, what's it got to do with me answering the door like this?" He posed in the doorway, as if on a cheesy commercial.

"Shouldn't you be too uptight?"

"No one's uptight about _everything_. Anyway, don't you think I'm getting better? I've been working on that." He finished his wine. "I need a refill. Are you coming in?"

"No," said Craig. "I just came here for a pie."

"A what?"

Craig crossed his arms, trying to act in control of the situation. "I need a pie, for my family, for Christmas. I'm prepared to exchange some paint swatches for a pie."

"They give out paint swatches at Home Depot _for free_, Craig."

"I mean for your apartment. Like, a whole color scheme."

"I see. Well, I am out of wine, so linger in the hallway if you must but I'll be going for a refill." And Kyle swept the cardigan behind him and strode back into his condo.

It turned out the wine was a sweet Riesling, and while Craig wasn't partial to it he was also feeling solicitous so he forced himself to drink it. "Stan's at work," Kyle said, leaning over his counter as he drank. "I'm excited. Things are really coming together."

Craig didn't know if he meant with their apartment or the restaurant they were opening, but he mumbled a detached, "That's nice," and worked on the Riesling. Kyle drank it with a pompous smile on his face, like maybe he'd planned this whole thing. Craig asked, "Do you think Clyde is stupid?"

"Uh—" And here was the thing about Kyle Broflovski: he really _thought_ about it, hunching his shoulders and pursing his lips and drinking wine languidly as he hemmed and hawed and then finally said, "I don't know! What do you think?" And it wasn't his typical, sarcasm-laced, "I don't _know_, what do you_ think_?" He was like, turning the question back around on Craig.

"It never occurred to me that he was, but now that it's on my mind I have realized that maybe he could be."

"Well, I don't know him that well," said Kyle, "or no more than I know any old South Park randoms. I'm just saying, shouldn't _you_ have a better idea?"

"Well, it's not like I can measure people's IQs through their dick." He'd never really _had_ to; many issues came with fucking the Whoever Whatever Professor of Bullshit but worrying over his intelligence or lack thereof wasn't one of them. Maybe it was bad form to shack up with an advisee but then again, apparently not.

"Don't be — ugh. Of course you can't measure someone's IQ through their dick, but if you're sucking someone's dick you're probably spending a lot of time with him, so what do you think? And like, even beyond that — there are several _kinds_ of intelligence, you know? Or maybe what I mean is, people display brains in different ways, like, I think about things in one way and Stan thinks about things in another way, and it's not that he's _stupider_ than I am, he just figures things out _differently_—"

"Okay, _how_ does this pertain to Clyde, exactly?"

"How do you not see how it _does_?"

"Just, do you think he's dumb?"

"Well, yeah, but — what are you asking _me_ for?"

"Who else would I ask?"

Kyle shrugged and reached for the bottle of wine again.

"You can really put that stuff away," said Craig.

"Oh, and you can't?" Shaking the bottle to get out the last drops, Kyle said, "So what's this about swatches of paint?"

"Well, I was hoping we could trade, essentially. I need a pie for Christmas, and you need to do something about this builder's palate. It doesn't go with anything you bought, for one thing."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Yes," said Craig, "and heaven forbid someone judge you based on what your house looks like, but listen, it matters."

"If I didn't think it mattered I wouldn't have asked you to help us in the first place."

"You asked me to help you because you wanted me to fuck you."

"I guess," said Kyle. "Okay, fair point."

Finishing his glass of wine, Craig set it on the counter, preparing to leave. "So it's a deal?"

"I'll have to ask Stan. What? I can't just agree he'll bake a pie for you."

"My understanding was that you could."

"Well, I'm trying to work on that, too. It's my new year's resolution."

"I don't believe in that. There's no point in resolving to do anything. Just do it or don't do it."

"I usually resolve to lose a couple pounds, but." Kyle finished the last half glass of wine in a single gulp. "Are you staying for dinner?"

"No," said Craig, "I'm leaving."

"Wait just a moment." Kyle sauntered across the kitchen to fetch something from a drawer. Two things — three things, a piece of paper and an envelope and a pen. With Kyle bent over the drawer Craig admired Kyle's ample behind, wishing he could muster the will to fuck it. Craig saw the paper was on cardstock as Kyle slid it into the envelope. He slammed the door and walked back across the room.

"What is that?"

Licking the envelope, Kyle shook his head. "You'll just have to open it to find out!" He scribbled on the front: _Mr. Craig Tucker and Guest_. The cap slid back onto the pen with a click.

"What, what are you doing?"

"Wait." Kyle uncapped the pen again, and crossed out the "and Guest."

"No," said Craig. "Stop that."

_Mr. Craig Tucker and Mr. Clyde Donovan_.

"Why did you do that?"

"Hope you can make it!"

"Are you really serious right now?"

"Well, I'll be in touch after I talk to Stan about the pie," Kyle said. "Unfortunately I'll have to ask you to get going now. I've got a date with my vibrator."

"Was it necessary to tell me that?" Craig asked, at the condo threshold.

"Yeah, go home and think about it." Kyle blew Craig a kiss before shutting the door.


	4. Chapter 4

It didn't take Craig long to hear back about the pie; Stan Marsh himself came by the next night to announce personally that it would be his honor to make a pie for the Tucker family for Christmas.

"I wasn't asking for your charity," said Craig, arms crossed against the doorframe. "I said I'd work up a color scheme of paint swatches for you. Like, in exchange."

"That's cool." Stan had flour in his hair and looked a bit worse for the wear, but he smiled like he meant it. "Are you guys gonna come to the New Year's party?"

"What guys? Oh. You mean, me and Clyde. You know, I don't _really_ appreciate Kyle horning in on my personal life."

"Hey, he said _you_ knocked on _our_ door."

"He literally told me flat-out he was going to masturbate."

"That's — okay." Stan shrugged. "Look, you should come. It's gonna be a cool crowd."

"What, like, restaurant people?"

"Some restaurant people, some friends. Old friends. Family. You know, a party."

"I'm familiar with parties," said Craig, though only in the most basic sense.

"Yeah, so, it'll be fun." Stan slapped Craig on the shoulder. "No worries about the pie. I need a shower."

"Well, I need a cortado." After Stan had gone back into his own apartment, Craig went to the kitchen to make one for himself. Against his better judgment, he called Clyde: "Do you want to go to a party?"

"I'm feeding my dogs dinner," said Clyde, "so not right now."

"I meant on New Year's Eve. At Stan and Kyle's, like, new restaurant."

"I would, yeah, that sounds nice."

"It sounds pretentious and grating," said Craig, though he was actually quite looking forward to it.

"If it sounds pretentious and grating, don't go."

"No, we're going. I just don't _like_ those guys."

"They're nice," said Clyde.

"Are they _really_?"

"Yes."

"Do you have evidence of this?"

"Well, it sounds like they invited you to a party?"

Craig sat down, mumbling, "Us, actually."

"_We_ invited you to a party?"

All of Craig's doubts about Clyde's intelligence came roaring back. "No, Clyde. I mean, Stan and Kyle invited _us_, me and you, to this party. Together, as a couple."

"Well, that's the first I've heard of it!"

"Because I have the invitation, and — look. When do you go to Phoenix?"

"Well, soon—"

"Come over tonight."

"The dogs—"

"Fine, then _I'll_ come over," Craig practically shouted, hanging up the phone. He scrambled to get on his shoes and coat, by which time Clyde was already calling him back. Ignoring it, Craig set off into the night, aware too late that his suede loafers were going to be bad in the snow, and that if he was going to Clyde's he should have brought a toothbrush or a whole overnight bag. Yet adrenaline propelled him forward, keeping him from turning back for his stuff.

Practically running through nasty weather, Craig's jeans were soaked when he knocked on Clyde's door. There was barely a moment for Clyde to say, "Gosh," and then Craig was on him, feeling reckless and out of his mind and they groped in the doorway, one dog eating noisily and the other spying from the kitchen.

"Give me that dick," Craig demanded, hopping inside the house and out of his shoes. "I want it."

"Not in front of the dogs," said Clyde.

Craig said, "Fuck those dogs!" Yet he didn't really want to fuck in _front_ of them, either. Clyde pulled him upstairs; they failed to make it to the bedroom.

Rug burn on his forearms and the fronts of his sinewy thighs, Craig wondered just what the fuck he was doing. Clyde was on top of him, panting wetly and pressing his lips to Craig's hair. "Okay, stop it, stop it," said Craig. "You're gonna fuck up my hair."

"It's already wet."

"Look, this is insane." Craig couldn't sit up with Clyde's body atop his, but he did roll onto his side and gaze up at Clyde's face, his hair all mussed and his lips swollen. Pants still around their ankles, shirts lightly doused with an application of Craig's come, he stared up into Clyde's brown fucking eyes as Clyde stared back, the expression on his soft features baldly asking, well, what about this is insane?

Clyde said aloud, "I've never done this before."

A dog came upstairs, its muzzle covered in dog food, dripping with water. He began to lick at Clyde's naked feet. "Snowy, good boy," Clyde said, his voice warm. "Good, good boy."

Clearing his throat, Craig asked, "Am I a good boy?"

"Yeah," said Clyde. "You're okay."

"_What_ have you never done before?"

"Oh, you know. This whole — thing." Reaching back, Clyde petted the dog at his brow. He whined, shook his head, and returned downstairs.

"You've got to get off of me, please. I've got to have dinner."

"You didn't eat?"

"Did you?"

Clyde gave a noncommittal grunt and got up, buttoning his pants again. He helped Craig up, too, and then fastened Craig's jeans for him as well, sliding the zipper up over Craig's softening dick with the reverence once reserved for — what? An infant's swaddling, your date's dress the morning after the prom, a body bag? Clyde patted the closure with his warm palm and leaned in for a kiss. But it was a far reach with his bulk, and Craig hunched to meet him, the nearby sound of barking dogs very far away in that moment.

"Let's get a pizza," Clyde said, in their parting.

"I haven't had a pizza in ages." Not since that hotel room; he now associated it with Acoma pottery. Craig was trying to think of a good place to get a pizza. He'd once enjoyed a Neapolitan pie at a place in Denver, all bleached wood and bare bulbs as interior. The décor had been better than the pizza, which was jarring, a soup in the middle, sauce like running water until the crust tore. Was that place still open?

"I'll call Shakey's." Clyde paused. "They deliver?"

"What? I don't know if they deliver."

"Well, they do. What do you want on your pizza?"

"My pizza?"

"Yeah, like, _your_ pizza." It turned out that Clyde ordered each of them a separate pizza. His had pepperoni and cheese stuffed into the crust, injected maybe, with ground beef and green peppers and double cheese. Craig didn't mind the lack of access to this pizza because it turned him off so thoroughly he barely ate two slices of his own plain cheese.

The delivery came with a two-liter bottle of Pepsi, a giant cookie in the guise of a pizza itself, and antipasto salad strewn with bits of shredded capicola and hunks of fontina. In a bewildering move Clyde picked these deli meats and cheeses from the salad and sprinkled them over each slice before eating it, folded up New York style. "It's good," he said through a full mouth.

"I don't doubt it," Craig replied, though he seriously did. He matted grease off of his own pizza with paper towels until Clyde rolled his eyes and shook his head at this dispiriting treatment.

"Seriously, eat some salad or something. Your hipbones are everywhere."

"I do not eat iceberg lettuce."

"Why not?"

"Because it's mostly water. Look, I'm eating pizza, see?" Craig took a bite, chewing it.

"I actually think you're really hot," said Clyde.

"That's flattering. That's nice."

"But you're too skinny."

"I don't know what you want me to say in response to that."

"You don't need to say anything. Just, I like you a lot."

In front of them the TV was blaring. Nothing special, just some shitty HBC sitcom. Every interior on the show was the same set, just sloppily redressed; Craig could tell.

"I like you a lot, too." Craig said it slowly, as if Clyde were an animal he'd come across in the woods.

Clyde's tone was low and tentative. "When I go down to Phoenix, can I tell my dad I have a boyfriend?"

"You're an adult, Clyde. Tell him whatever you want."

"But I'm not going to tell him that if it's not true. I'm not just going to make something up to get him to think I'm okay."

"Are you not okay?"

"I'm fine, I just want to know if I can tell him that. I want to know if I do."

"You can tell him," said Craig. "It wouldn't be lying, I guess."

"Can I tell him that it's you?"

The sound of the fucking laugh track seemed to be cheering Craig on. "Sure." He was surprised at how loud this came out of his mouth: "Tell him that it's me."

* * *

><p>Driving Clyde to the airport, Craig was embarrassed by his car. Clyde had been in it lots of times; Craig had owned it since his dad had passed it down to him in high school. His sister had gotten a new one with the pale excuse, "I already gave you my old one." It was a 25-year-old Toyota that sputtered up the on-ramp as a lump grew in Craig's throat. Would this fucking Toyota finally die somewhere between Fairplay and Denver International? Maybe Craig didn't want to drive Clyde to the airport. Maybe he didn't want to spend Christmas alone, with his family. Maybe Craig didn't want Roger Donovan to find out he and Clyde had been boning, or that they were "an item" or that they were going to Stan and fucking Kyle's New Year's party together in the city. Clyde was almost certainly driving. Craig planned to fucking drink. The night before, the evening of the 22nd, Craig had run into Kyle waiting for the elevator, both of them with huge bags of groceries. Kyle had leaned over and said, in a voice that sounded a little too pleased for comfort, "So I see you and Clyde are an item now?"<p>

"Where did you see _that_?"

"The internet!"

"Ugh," Craig had said, "excuse me, but I'll be taking the stairs."

They met again in front of their apartments, where Kyle was waiting to greet Craig with an overenthusiastic cheer of, "Happy Hanukkah!"

Craig had spat a terse, "Same to you," then put away his groceries feeling like the absolute worst, biggest asshole in the universe, until Clyde had called him for some bedtime phone sex, a new and upsetting development. Clyde was weirdly good at describing his own dick.

"The consequence of a lot of time thinking about it," he said, sheepishly, after they'd both come.

The car didn't stall out on the way to the airport anyway. "Say hi to your dad for me," said Craig, feeling this was a rather magnanimous gesture.

"Thanks." Clyde leaned over, kissing Craig on the lips. It was a hard reach over the gear shift, but Craig came forward enough to make it work. "Thanks for the ride to the airport."

"Well, it's no problem."

Cars began to honk at them.

"Have a nice trip."

"Have a nice Christmas with your family."

"They suck, but thanks."

A woman in a traffic control vest came over to wave her arms at them through the windshield.

"You'd better go," said Craig.

"Yeah." Clyde leaned over to kiss Craig a second time, leaving him with a loose embrace. "I love you," he said. "I'll call you."

"Okay."

"I'll text you from the plane."

"Okay, you should."

The traffic cop was knocking on Craig's driver-side window. "Time to move along, sir!" she shouted. It was muffled through the window.

As Craig merged into airport traffic he turned to glimpse at Clyde, dragging his large suitcase into the terminal. If he was only going for a few days, why did Craig feel so sad?

Craig came home to an e-mail from Token Black, imploring Craig to call, as he was in town for the holiday. So Craig did. "You're in town, huh?"

"_I'm_ in town?" Token asked. "I come to town to see my parents twice a year. Every year for Christmas since I was 18. Where the hell have _you _been?"

"Just sort of here," said Craig.

"Here, in South Park?"

"No, here on Planet Earth, just a citizen of humanity — yes, in South Park."

"For years, Clyde says."

"Oh, that Clyde," said Craig. He was staring out his window at the evergreen shrubs recently planted on his balcony.

"He's reported some interesting things."

"I can only imagine. Well, let's get together and compare notes."

"Skeeter's?"

"Fuck that, no, I am not going there," said Craig. "My place." He dictated the address to Token over the phone, hung up, and began scrambling to pull together some classy _noshes_, as Kyle might have called them: leftover white bean hummus, crab rilletes, a hunk of mediocre St. Agur, fresh-scrubbed radish slices with butter and maldon salt on the side. He pulled out the bottle of overly sweet Riesling he had gotten from Stan and Kyle as a holiday gift; as he stuffed it into his freezer he was reminded to reciprocate. But what did you get for the two worst people ever? He didn't even _like_ them.

Token seemed impressed with the place. "I shouldn't have expected any less, though," he said, inspecting the hot-house flowers carefully. "It's a lot like you."

"How so?" Craig asked.

"A weird mix of vacant with human touches," said Token. He lived in San Francisco, apparently, and was a marginally successful poet when he wasn't at his desk in Palo Alto. "Privacy guidelines get boring," he said sadly, bending to sniff the flowers. "It's not like here."

"But you're raking it in, I bet."

"I've been there since college and I haven't seen snow once." After his BA, Token had gotten a master's in politics and a law degree. Stanford, followed by Stanford and Stanford. "But I'm more concerned about you."

"Don't be concerned about me, I'm fine. How do you feel about St. Agur?"

"Screw your St. Agur," said Token, pronouncing it like he spent a summer in Provence. "Just admit it's fucked up to disappear and then come back like this."

"Like what?"

"In the shadows, like some kind of local sleuth."

"Local sleuth?"

"You know what I mean." Token finally smeared some St. Agur on a water cracker, washing it down with the Riesling. "This isn't very good," he said, "and Riesling's very 10 years ago."

"Kyle Broflovski gave me that Riesling."

"Jesus, really?"

"Yes, because I made the mistake of not spitting it out dramatically after he offered me a glass."

"You don't think he's serving this at that New Year's party of his, do you?"

"I hope you're not going to that."

"I hope _you're_ not! He called me on the phone," Token said, "and _begged_ me to come. I was going to go back home to spend it out with my girlfriend, but he sounded so _desperate_. I changed my plans. I felt so guilty."

"Was she pissed about that?"

"Not really, I don't know." Token frowned, still handsome. He was like the one black guy Banana Republic put in their holiday ads: super clean, super sharp, the best amount of muscle. "She's passive-aggressive. It's never been serious."

"What's she like?"

"Forget her," said Token. "I'm more interested in _you_. Is it serious with Clyde?"

"Do you guys actually, like, talk?"

"We e-mail. We got lunch when I came in yesterday. He told me to get in touch with you, um—"

"Did _he_ tell you it was serious?" Craig asked.

"Honestly, I don't know what the hell happened. He got wasted at the Red Robin at the mall, dissolved into blubbering tears, and said he loved you, like, five times."

"See, I'm weirded out by that. Wouldn't you be?" Sighing, Craig reached for a shiny pink radish.

"Honestly, on the whole I find Clyde one of the less weird people in this town. He keeps in contact with people. That's more than I can say about you."

"Oh, you want to keep in contact with people from school, do you? Because if so, go knock on the door next to me and say hi to Stan and Kyle. Just make sure you bring condoms."

"Do I have to tell them I liked the Riesling?"

In reply, Craig said, "Oh, those assholes won't take 'no' for an answer."

"Is anyone surprised that lasted?"

"I don't know, I'm a little surprised. Stan is so comparatively normal."

"No one's normal," said Token. "I mean, not in this town."

"I always thought that to be the case," said Craig, "until I had to come back here." He told the story, briefly, of his first relationship, carefully omitting the bits he was beginning to realize made him sound a little too much like a rape victim. The last thing he wanted was pity, least of all from staid, reasonable Token. It would have been too genuine.

At the end of the story, Token leaned forward and said, "Your professor shouldn't have taken advantage of you like that. That — it's not right."

"So if I wanted to tell this story in the future," said Craig, "which parts would you say I should omit if I don't want pity?"

"I'd get used to the pity," said Token, "or stop telling the story." They hugged when Token left, and Craig admired the manful way Token patted him on the back and said, "You know, I missed you."

"I missed you too," said Craig, surprising himself. It was reflexive, but not untrue.

* * *

><p>Christmas proper left Craig in an awkward position, both in love with and annoyed by his family. The pie was a big hit, as it tended to be; his sister and brother-in-law got him an antique shaving kit. The razor handle was an absurd mother-of-pearl that gleamed to the point of distraction. It was useless and thoughtful, an unexpectedly delightful combination to Craig's mind. He thanked them all sincerely, hoping they didn't mind his gifts of gourmet pickled wax beans and artisan jam.<p>

"What the hell is prickly pear preserve?" his sister asked.

"It's a jam made out of—"

"I got it," she replied. "It was rhetorical."

He somehow doubted it, but allowed her to hug him anyway.

On the other hand, the kids were greasy and noisy and Craig had never figured out what kind of role he should play for them. He didn't want to be slick bachelor uncle or kooky gay uncle or detached unfeeling uncle. Figuring kids didn't like fancy jam, he got them each a fifty-dollar bill. "Ulysses Grant says 'merry Christmas,' " he said, handing them each their money. The looks of confusion and disappointment on their faces were well worth the hundred bucks.

Then there was the fact that, though his mother had promised not to judge, she'd blabbed to Craig's father about the Clyde thing. "I really don't think you oughta be dating Roger Donovan's kid," Craig heard halfway through Christmas dinner. "There's something messed up about that guy."

"Who, Roger Donovan? He moved to Phoenix, how would you know?"

"I mean his kid. Something off about that kid. Those two dogs."

"What's wrong with those dogs?"

"What kind of adult man lives in his childhood home with two Great Pyreneeses and owns a shoe store?"

"A really weird one," Craig admitted, bored of this already. "Look, you can't tell me what to do."

"Like hell I can't."

"At least I didn't get married and have children at 18."

"I resent that!"

"Craig," said Laura Tucker, "lay off your sister."

"Look. I'm an adult. Adults make bad decisions. Is dating Clyde a bad decision? Yeah, I guess so. Will I end up regretting it? Probably. But I assume that's not why you don't like the idea of me dating him."

Thomas Tucker was a large man and when he spoke it was often unclear whether he meant his words with vulnerability or brusqueness. This year, over a dinner of dry ham, green bean casserole, and rhubarb pie, he leaned over a mug of tepid coffee and said, in all somber earnestness, "That kid is just so _weird_."

"Well, he's not a kid, he's a big fat adult."

Walking home alone on Christmas night, shaving kit in his hands, Craig pondered his own lingering existential angst. He had problems with stupidity and was not overly fond of pity. But, weird? Weird was Craig's element.

Weird, he could do.

* * *

><p>It was snowing when Craig returned to Denver International Airport. Flight 204, direct service from Phoenix, had been delayed six hours now on account of the wintery mix. Being the week between Christmas and New Year's, traffic crept toward the airport at a frustrating snail's pace. Craig might have enjoyed it, were it a calm and tranquil experience; the din of traffic and the pulse of stop-and-go brake lights left Craig gritting his teeth. All this to get Clyde from the airport. It seemed not worth it, though the sight of sweat gleaming on Clyde's face as he lugged his bag out of the terminal weirdly gave Craig an erection.<p>

"Let me help you with that." Craig barely had the trunk open before a traffic cop was screaming at him to get back in the damn car and drive away already.

"Hi again," said Clyde, as soon as the bag was in the trunk. "Thanks. I missed you."

"You too." Craig allowed himself to be kissed, a hand under his chin, the kind of intimate hi-again kiss that would have pissed him off on film. In real life it wasn't so bad, the snow falling gently. Then a car honked at them and Clyde nearly toppled over from shock.

In the car, Clyde announced that he had made a hotel reservation for the night of the 31st.

"For who?" Craig asked, "For you?"

"Well, no, I mean — for us."

"If I had to go to Stan and Kyle's fucking — whatever — the only compensation I'll accept is falling asleep in my own bed."

"But that's not practical, on account of the driving."

"Have you never had dinner in the city before?" Craig asked this knowing full well that Clyde had.

"It's just the drinking, and the roads aren't safe that night."

"Oh, that's such shit."

"You don't even want to know what hotel?"

"Does it matter?" Craig was then delighted to learn that, well, it sort of did, because Clyde had picked a nice one.

"I sort of think it's like a Christmas gift."

"The only Christmas gift I want is that dick."

"Well, I figured." It turned out that Clyde had actually brought Craig back a real gift, a potted cactus garden in a dish with a chintzy Southwestern motif. "See, I thought it went with your little things here," he said, placing the cacti near the window.

"Well, it does not! These are bromeliads — _hothouse_ flowers, Clyde, okay, they are for wet weather, they love humidity. This is a cactus."

"Cacti."

"Cactuses like dryness. They are not hothouse flowers. They are very much the opposite."

"Well," said Clyde, "I tried!" Like it was amusing that he'd failed. He turned as purple as a beet and rifled through Craig's fridge.

The cacti planting went well on the coffee table, Craig figured, and he placed it there under a thickly woven mat. He did not know where the mat had come from and its rough-hewn look did not really go with the waxy, spiky plants, but the contrast looked good. He considered the match a success and sat at the counter, watching Clyde eat white bean hummus out of a container in great scoops with ancient grain crackers. "This is great," he said, through a mouthful. "I miss my dogs, though."

"Yeah, well." Craig shrugged it off. That was their deal: sex at Craig's, then dogs. Token had been dogsitting; would the dogsitter mind? The flight was delayed anyway. "Hurry up, okay? It's been like five days."

Afterward, feeling dopey and sated, Craig dropped Clyde off at home. The dogs were in the yard. Token had left a note inviting them to dinner.

"This is too much," Craig moaned. A dog was rubbing on his old jeans. They cost 130 dollars when he'd bought them in college, with his boyfriend's credit card. He used to pull that kind of shit all the time. The memory was partly depressing, like a symptom of a bad fall, this huge fucking dog slobbering onto his feet. Another part of him, a tired part of him, was sort of pleased. Who else was still rocking his college jeans? They were artfully frayed at the knees, but Craig's thigh gap had spared the usual wear-and-tears on the insides of his legs and his crotch.

"These looks so good on you." Clyde patted Craig on the ass and the dog on his head, pulling him away from the jeans. "Sorry," he said, sheepishly. "I think they smell me in you."

"Yuck."

"Not literally, you know, just — my cologne, or whatever. My deodorant."

"That's cute." Craig realized he was lingering, purposely not going home. This made him want to go home, but dinner was in an hour.

Instead he sat with Clyde, who looked at everything on Netflix and didn't play anything. "We could start a series," Craig suggested.

"I dunno, these all look silly."

"Have you ever seen _Twin Peaks_?"

"I don't know what that is."

"Well, I've never seen it, either, but it's supposed to be kind of artsy. Ambient."

"I don't know…"

"How about _Weekend_? It's a movie."

"What's it about?"

"Gay guys, but it's ambient."

"What if we watched something that _wasn't_ ambient?"

"I don't know," said Craig. "Aesthetics are kind of my wheelhouse." Somehow this next-generation channel surfing ate up an entire hour.

On the walk to Café Monet, Clyde threatened, "I've got a lot of housewives on my DVR to watch after dinner."

"Great, then I'll go home."

Dinner was slow and trying, with the restaurant out of the choucroute garnie Craig had wanted. He settled for scallops baked in a cream sauce. After eating one of his four scallops he realized he couldn't do it, pushing it into the center of the table. "Don't you want that?" Token asked.

"I can't eat this, it's too much."

"Too rich?" Token asked.

"You'd know, I guess," said Clyde, to which he laughed, by himself.

"No," said Craig, "it's just too much. Too many things happening. I don't know." Uneasy with them staring at him, he ordered a mixed salad and watched Clyde finish the scallops off on top of his petite shell steak.

After receiving his salad, Craig looked up to see Token smiling at him from across the table. "What?" Craig asked.

"Nothing, sorry. I just think you guys are really in sync."

"We are?" Clyde asked.

"Yeah. It's sort of cute."

"What does that mean, though? 'Cute' is the worst aesthetic. It's so easy to fuck-up."

"What's with you and aesthetics?"

"He loves aesthetics," said Clyde, "he was just complaining about aesthetics."

"I'm sorry, but I can't just _undo_ my interests."

"Don't apologize, man," said Token. "You do you."

"That's basically what he does." Clyde hid his grin behind his pint of Carlsberg.

"Honestly?"

"Craig Tucker doing Craig Tucker. That's an aesthetic."

"Fuck you, Token Black, that aesthetic is too meta. I hate meta as an aesthetic!"

"Animals wearing wide-brimmed hats close-up says differently."

"It was _Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angled Lens, Wearing Hats_, and I was 9 and you're an asshole."

"Vintage Craig Tucker," said Clyde.

"And fuck you, too. I for one am curious to hear a reprise of your fourth-grade report on lesbian cheerleaders."

"I did not do that."

"Oh, I am _pretty_ sure you did, Clyde."

"I think he's right," said Token.

Clyde was laughing so hard he spit up some beer.

"Ugh, that's disgusting." Craig wadded his cloth napkin into a point and dipped it into Clyde's untouched water goblet. Dabbing at Clyde's button-down shirt, he scowled. "It's nothing to _laugh_ about. That said, this isn't a very nice shirt."

"Perfect," said Token.

"I know, right?"

Craig scoffed, and fanned the damp spot on Clyde's shirt until it was passably dry.

* * *

><p>The new year typically didn't phase Craig. January 1 was another day, usually a cold one, 'amateur night' as some called it. For Craig, never a partier, the prospect of spending the evening out seemed less fun, more a chore. Clyde was enthusiastic, though. "I never do anything like this!" he enthused, inspecting all the touches in their hotel room: a towel heater in the bathroom, mints on the pillows, a TV with a channel that played piano concertos as information about downtown Denver danced across the screen. "Get dressed, get dressed," Clyde panted. "The car is coming at 6:45. I don't want to be late."<p>

"Late to what?" Craig asked. "Have you never been to a party? They don't start on _time_, then you get there and have to wait around until midnight."

"I know, all night long!"

Craig couldn't argue with that. Instead he put on his nice black jeans and a tailored purple button-down, smeared sulfur-infused lanolin on his face, trimmed his nose hair a little, laced up his ankle boots, made sure he was clean-shaven, and got into the hired car with Clyde. The ride was shorter than he was expecting in holiday traffic, the city emptied. Maybe everyone was in Vail or something. Maybe they were all in Hawaii. Clyde tented his fingers and spent the ride with a stupid grin on his face, clearly pleased. Craig felt increasingly short of breath, a feeling of dread building up.

Getting out of the car, Clyde asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Craig replied, though he wasn't.

The restaurant turned out to be smaller than Craig had been imagining, though it was in a cavernous old warehouse space in a new mixed-use development. The DJ was playing show tunes, which was the most Stan Marsh thing Craig could imagine, but the place was badly insulated and they bounced off the brick walls harshly, causing quite a racket. Voices carried and feet dragged on a cement floor and all the tables were natural wood, bolted with steel studs. The lamps dangled from meat hooks. Servers in plain clothes offered canapés from platters, each one a complex riot of colors. One girl with an angled haircut stopped them as soon as they'd checked their coats to offer a "seared Colorado lamb with bleu béchamel and watercress, on pumpernickel. It pairs great with our house Riesling."

"Fuck your house Riesling," said Craig. It was all he could get out.

"Um, I'll try the lamp." Clyde sheepishly accepted one of the tightly constructed squares. "I mean, lamb."

"Enjoy!"

Clyde inhaled it in one bite. "Sorry," he said, "I should have offered you some."

Everyone was there. Literally everyone, every last person. The guy from the café he let Stan and Kyle take him to brunch at, the one with the chia seed pudding. Stan's and Kyle's families, their stupid parents and Stan's sister and four kids who looked _just like_ Stan's sister, all of whom were lingering in the corner on the phones, even the little one who looked about 3 years old. Every kid from town, every last kid Craig had known in elementary school, all of them older and fatter (except for Wendy Testaburger, who was the same, and Kenny McCormick, who was emaciated) and many of them hugging the arms of their significant others. Slowly Craig made an inventory of all of them. His mind reeled. He didn't know what to do.

"Do you want a glass of that wine, or?" Clyde hadn't swallowed his entire bite of food yet.

"I can't," said Craig.

"You can't drink? It's cool, I got a car."

"I can't."

"I'll take care of you."

"I can't, I can't do this, I have to — I'll go stand on the wall. Actually, I need to leave."

"We just got here!"

"I'm sorry, I have to—" Craig pushed his way out the door and left the restaurant. Outside it was freezing, his coat still checked. There was snow on the ground, half-melted with bits of chemical salt, little white bobbles that left a sickly smear under the sole of Craig's boots. The sky was a deep purple, the pitch-black mountain sky polluted with the lights of civilization, which gave it a sickly iridescence. He felt like crying, but wasn't going to. He was breathing heavily. This had never happened before.

Clyde came tumbling out after him. "I got your coat," he said. "We can go, if you want."

"I don't want you to go," said Craig.

"I'm not just going to let you stand out here alone. You'll be cold."

"I'm just a cold person."

"That's not true, and what's it got to do with this?"

"I can't do it, with all of them," said Craig. "I can't, too many people. I can't. I can't."

"It's okay."

"It's not okay, this is crazy, I can't do it—"

"Here, put your coat on." Clyde draped it over Craig's shoulders. "You don't have to. It's okay. We can leave."

"But you wanted to go to this party!"

"I just wanted to go with _you_."

"Well, we came, so now you should go in there and hang out with all those South Park assholes."

"Craig, you're a South Park asshole."

"Jesus," said Craig, "don't."

Guests were streaming into and, in a lesser sense, out of, the party. Some stood at the curb and smoked; some were on their phones. Those heading in mostly seemed well-heeled and well-dressed; many did not pause at the sight of Craig and Clyde. Among these was Token, who did.

"Are you guys leaving?" he asked.

"No," said Craig.

"Yes," said Clyde.

"Oh no, is this party terrible? Man, I stayed an extra week for this."

"It's fine," said Craig, "I just can't deal in there with all those people."

"We should go."

"Just let me stand out here. You guys go in."

"What kind of people?" Token asked.

"South Park people."

"Well, who else would be here?"

"I don't know, look, you guys, please go in. I'll just stand here. I don't want to have to talk to them."

"You don't have to talk to anyone if we leave," said Clyde.

"You know what?" Opening his wool coat, Token pulled a small prescription bottle out of his inner pocket. He opened it and shook out a small beige pill into a gloved palm. "Here," he said, handing it to Craig.

"What's this?"

"Xanax. Well, or, it's actually generic."

"Why do you have this?"

"That's not a polite thing to ask," said Clyde.

"I think it's perfectly _fine_ to ask someone who's handing you drugs on the street where he got them."

"It's mine, it's for anxiety."

"What does it do?" Clyde asked.

"It just — I don't know, it helps you relax? Sort of stops you from caring about things, really. The worst thing that could happen is it won't work."

"Sounds fine. What do I take it with?"

"Water, I guess," said Token. "Sometimes if I really want it to work, like when I'm on a plane or something, I take it with a bloody mary."

"Quite baller," said Craig.

"I would prefer it if we just went to the hotel."

"Shut up, Clyde, I can't think. Or — sorry. Can you get me a glass of wine? Anything but that fucking Riesling."

"I guess. Um, Token, can you hang out here—?"

"I'd seriously prefer it if you both just let me stay out here alone for a sec."

Once they had left him, Craig huddled against the side of the building, cold and damp and feeling colossally stupid for even coming. He hoped the pill didn't dissolve in his clammy hand.

Then Kyle somehow found him.

"Oh no," said Craig. "No, please leave me alone."

"You could thank me for my hospitality," said Kyle.

"Clyde tried the lamb. He seemed not to spit it out in revulsion."

For once Kyle was wearing something normal, men's jeans and an argyle sweater, lapels of a collared shirt peeking out from the neck. Not flattering, not by a mile, but normal.

"Did you take a break from shopping in the women's section of J. Crew?" Craig asked.

"You're the last person from whom I'm going to accept homophobic shit."

"Oh really?" Craig stood up straight, somehow empowered by this exchange. "I should be the first, frankly."

"This unprecedented rudeness is really a downer. I just came out here to see if you were okay."

"What did Clyde say?"

"Clyde? I saw you freeze up and run out like you were having an anxiety attack."

"Oh, was I?"

"Well, here." Kyle was shivering now, but he pulled something out of his pocket. "I mean, assuming you don't have your own Xanax."

"What's with everyone and Xanax?"

"What do you mean, everyone? Stan's got shitloads of this so I swiped a pill from his purse."

"Stan carries a purse?"

"An overnight bag, whatever. Do you want this?"

"I'm got some already."

"Oh!"

"It's not mine," said Craig. "What is it with you people?"

"Well, when I see one of my friends go haywire and run out of my party I usually _try_ to follow up with them. At the very least it's good hostessing!"

"I can't remark on that. It's too pure."

"Disappointing. I need at least one gay friend I can depend on for cutting remarks."

"Stop calling me your friend. It's making me feel weird. Well, weirder."

"We're friends," said Kyle.

"I think if you're friends with someone you don't need to discuss it. Just let it be."

"Whatever. Did you want Stan's Xanax?"

"I already have some." Craig opened his hand, revealing the tiny pill Token had given him.

"Well, that's convenient!" Kyle straightened out, returned the pill to his pocket, and said, "If you'll excuse me, I'm cold. And neglecting my crowd."

"Terrible hostessing."

"Yeah, I suck." Kyle rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm glad you came."

"I don't do hugs."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Well, you did try to get me to fuck you."

"Guess what, Craig? I find hugging infinitely more intimate." He hugged Craig anyway.

Clyde came back sweaty, with a glass of champagne. "Will this do?"

Snatching it away, Craig merely answered, "Mmhmm," gulping it down along with the little pill.

"Take it easy."

"You take it easy," said Craig. He finished the glass, breathing deeply. "Just give me a sec. I think I can do this."

"Well, I'm glad you're willing to try, but honestly — it's not a big deal, it's okay."

"I'm not going to be the grown man who can't face up to some elementary school losers I don't even like."

"Is that bravery or stupidity?" Clyde asked.

"Unclear." Craig stuck out his arm for Clyde to take. "I think I can do it. Stay with me."

"I'm not going anywhere."

They immediately bumped into the server from before; now she was offering slices of toasted baguette with a sliver of 'nut roast' and a dab of cranberry-sherry gelée, young pea shoots, and 90-day goat's milk gouda.

Clyde widened his eyes and said, "I don't think I'm going to like that."

"I'll take two." Craig accepted his hors d'oeuvres on a cocktail napkin embossed with the name of the restaurant, _Une Crèche_.

"What's a crèche?" Clyde asked.

"A nativity scene," said Craig.

"It's a nursery for baby animals," said the server. "Where baby animals are cared for when they're separated from their families."

"That's just about the biggest Stan Marsh bullshit I've ever heard in my life."

"I think it's sweet," said Clyde. To the girl, he said, "I have two dogs."

"Did you want one of these?" she edged the tray into his face.

"No thanks, I'm okay."

After she'd gone, Craig said, "Kyle came up with that, I promise you. Stan is not that smart." He placed the extra nut roast slice in Clyde's cupped hands. "Honestly, try this." When Clyde blanched, Craig added, "I said he was stupid, not a bad cook."

"He's not stupid, you know, he's a nice guy."

"Well, one doesn't preclude the other, exactly."

Having tried the hors d'oeuvre, Clyde admitted it was okay, but claimed to want a drink. In line, Craig realized it was a cash bar. The room was full of gregarious people, chatting and laughing and dancing ineptly. "What an incredibly odd party," he said. He then harangued the bartender for charging for drinks.

"I was just hired to serve."

"Well, you don't _invite_ someone to a party and then make them pay for their own drinks. What happened to hospitality? What happened to congeniality? Conviviality?"

Clyde leaned in and apologetically said, "He is on some meds, so."

They got glasses of champagne ("Fuck your Riesling, that's swill," Craig informed the traumatized bartender) and then went to stand in the corner, where they accepted savory éclairs filled with dill-mascarpone and, soon after, more lamb. Craig was finally beginning to feel like himself, though also like someone else, someone much looser and less miserable: "The spread at this party is okay."

"What if we danced?"

"I'm not dancing," said Craig, "sorry."

"That's okay." Clyde had some béchamel on his lips. "I'm not a great dancer anyway."

Time slipped by as Craig realized the drug was affecting him, that he still didn't want to run into people he knew, but also, remarkably, he sort of didn't care. He let Clyde hold onto his waist until the idea of dancing began to feel like it wasn't so terrible. "These show tunes aren't the worst," he said. "Shit, that's probably the drinks talking."

"I'll suck your dick but I can't get into musicals, sorry."

"You've never sucked my dick, have you?"

"No."

"Are you gonna?"

"I don't know." Clyde sounded a bit drunk, too, his words thick and slow. "Do you want me to?"

"Do you want to?"

"I do, yeah, kind of. I've never sucked one before."

"That sounds like a _serious_ oversight," said Craig. He could tell he was drunk from the hissing, snakelike quality of his tone. "Oh, lord."

Inevitably they were approached by some old classmates, and individually these people did not bother Craig nearly as much as the idea of all of them in one faceless mess. Bebe Stevens came to chat with her husband, who was stern-faced and has recently purchased a part of the Rockies for Bebe as a wedding gift. "You guys should come to a game!" she cried, smacking Clyde in the shoulder. "We have a box!" Her husband just shook his head, slowly, as if this had been happening all night.

"I hate baseball," said Craig, "and so does Clyde, and so does literally everyone."

"It's the national pastime," said the guy with the stake in the team.

"Craig's an interior designer," said Clyde.

"I'm shocked," said Bebe.

Her husband asked, "What do you design?"

"Um, interiors."

"Well, that's great," said the finance dude Bebe had married, and Craig knew that he'd blown a potential client acquisition opportunity.

Not long after Craig found himself saying to Kenny McCormick, "Rich people don't have any idea how hard it is to deal with their shit."

"Um, Kyle told me you _literally_ live next to him in those fucking condos they converted Judson packing into."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Kenny took a swig of Fat Tire and rolled his eyes. "If you don't get what that had to _do_ with anything—"

"My ex gave me that 250 grand or whatever."

"Well, I never thought I'd be standing here having a conversation with Craig Tucker _drunk_ on New Year's Eve, but, okay." Kenny shrugged.

"Why did you never think I'd be drunk? Why did you think you'd never talk to me? Is it because you think I'm ridiculous? I'm not ridiculous, okay, I'm just trying to get through shit. I'm just trying to get through this party."

"Well, aren't all of us?" Despite his thinness Kenny was good-looking, with thick yellowish hair and a boyish shape to his face. "I'm happy for my friends, I guess, but I think the musical numbers are a bit much."

"I know, right?"

"Right, yeah. Well, I guess the last, best thing I learned this year was that I missed out on some real deep party chat with you in high school. Don't be a stranger."

Craig stifled a strange laugh and gave Kenny the warmest look he could muster. "I'm the strangest."

"Well, I wouldn't argue with that." Clyde returned with fresh glasses of champagne, though, so Kenny added: "Or maybe I would."

By midnight Craig felt light-headed and giddy, far from himself at the other end of the spectrum, the polar opposite of his initial experience at the party. The countdown was messy and the crowd too uncoordinated to cheer in unison. At "Happy new year!" balloons fell from the ceiling. Clyde caught one after it bumped him at the top of his head.

"You don't want to kiss me in public, do you?"

"Public, maybe," said Craig, "just not right now, at this party."

"Would you kiss me back at the hotel?"

"I'd do more than kiss you."

Clyde perked up, drawing out his phone to call the car. He was interrupted by the voice of Kyle Broflovski saying, "Excuse me, excuse me," from a microphone. "We should hear this, I guess." Clyde slipped his phone away again.

"Do we have to?" Now that Craig was thinking about sex, he was not terribly interested in anything else. He trained his attention on Kyle, who was joined by Stan. They stood together awkwardly, side-by-side for just a few moments. Then, like they'd never been apart, Kyle melted into Stan's arms and they kissed.

"We're so touched," Stan said, his arms around Kyle's shoulders. He sounded like he was in tears, though as far as Craig could tell, Stan wasn't crying. He might have been cooking all night, for all Craig knew. "We love you all so much. We're honored that you're here with us. This year — this is going to be our best year."

Kyle then said something funny. Craig hadn't caught it, but most of the room laughed. "I guess so!" Kyle said, as a follow-up. More laughter.

* * *

><p>In the car on the way back to the hotel, Craig slumped in his seat. "I'll be ready to kiss in front of everyone next time," he said. "Just get me drunker."<p>

"I'm a bit drunk." Apparently not wearing a seatbelt, Clyde slid over. "Hey."

"Hey." Craig curled an arm around Clyde's stomach. "I never want to do anything like that again."

The makeout session began in the car and was paused in the hotel lobby, but resumed in the elevator and continued into the doorframe, against which Craig writhed while Clyde searched Craig's pockets for their key. "Did you put it in here? Stop moving, I don't want to do this in the hall."

"What's the difference? It's New Year's Eve."

"Just something weird about having sex in the hall."

"But it's kind of a hot idea, right? Can you hold me up against this doorframe?"

"Probably not." Clyde found the key in his own pocket and, after a stab or two, somehow got it into the card reader. "Okay, there we go, that wasn't so bad."

Falling on the bed, Craig tried, without success, to shrug off his coat. "This appears to be stuck," he said. "I haven't been this drunk since I was in college."

"Yeah?"

"I think so."

"I tend not to get drunk like this. I just feel kind of — reserved."

"Well, you promised to suck my dick."

"Yeah, I guess I did."

It had been years, or maybe never? No, years; Neville did it once, just once, in nearly a decade. After a long night and some Xanax and an awful lot of drinking Craig felt out of his mind with raw, unprocessed emotion. Looking down at Clyde, a fully undressed and vulnerable man sucking Craig's dick, the sight was nearly heartbreaking. Nobody'd ever done it for Craig before, and after everything, every last struggle of a particularly textured past year, he had to bite back tears. He didn't come easily, exactly, though it felt nice; Craig did like staring at Clyde long enough to catch Clyde's eyes in an upward flicker as he licked Craig's cock like it was a Unicorn Pop, up and down and 270 degrees around and then realizing, actually, he was going to have to go back the other way. Drunk time moved too slowly for Craig to really process, but he glanced at the clock and saw it was going to be 2 a.m. soon.

From his crouched position on the floor Clyde asked, "Are you going to come or anything?"

With a groan, Craig fell back onto the bed. "Just fuck me," he insisted. "Seriously. Come here." He patted the mattress. It was a nice enough hotel that he spared a thought for ruining the coverlet. But didn't people _do this_ in nice hotels? Wasn't that what they paid for?

Clyde's weight collapsed atop Craig's body, clutching the stiff plastic of his colostomy with one hand. "I don't know about this position."

"Here," said Craig, "Let me." He held the fucking thing against Clyde's body while they fucked, slowly and awkwardly, much the way Craig liked it. He came, finally, with his spit-drenched dick trapped under Clyde's stomach, rubbing around in the trim layer of hair that crept from Clyde's crotch to his navel.

"Thanks for sucking me off," Craig whispered, against Clyde's strained expression. Apparently it was all that was needed to set Clyde off. Craig came too, painting a sticky mess between their sweaty bodies. It was freezing outside but the heat was on in their room. With Clyde snoring beside him, Craig passed out thinking that was the worst thing about a Colorado winter: everyone assumed you wanted them to blast the heat.

The next morning brought a hangover for each of them, a call to the front desk requesting a late check-out time, and a tray of room service breakfast. Over a 12-dollar carafe of swill coffee Craig gave Clyde a shaky, jerking hand job. "You look good like that," Craig said.

"Like what? Sick and tired?"

"No, just kind of sex-starved."

"I'm not starving. You're pretty good to me."

"Clyde, you've never been with anyone else." The revelation kind of stung, though it might also have been the sudden appearance of the sun, absent for the past week.

"That's true." It was tinged with a kind of longing, a bit far away. Yet Clyde pulled himself together by clearing his throat and saying, "I don't think I want to be with anyone else."

"That's stupid."

"What's stupid, wanting to be with you?"

"Not me specifically, no, I'm kind of great. But the idea that you'd never be with anyone _else_? I dunno, it makes me anxious."

"Why, who else did _you_ want to be with?"

Craig was about to answer, "These two clients of mine, both named Dave, I call them the Daves," but he stopped himself.

"What were you going to say?" Clyde asked.

"I didn't have anyone in mind, and to be honest the idea doesn't appeal to me at the moment. But it hurts me a little that you like me so much, because it's not like we got together after you had a lot of experience with other guys? If I'm all you've had, how do you know I'm what you want?"

"If I don't know any better, what's the difference?"

"I guess there's no difference." Craig sighed and flexed his hand, which he'd neglected to wipe off. Now there was half-dried come on it, and he couldn't eat breakfast like _that_. "Hold up," he said, swiping his clean fingers against Clyde's cheek on his way to the bathroom.

Upon Craig's return Clyde appeared to be eating a Belgian waffle, but upon closer inspection he was eating pads of butter off of his waffle, each drenched in cheap table syrup. The butter had apparently been frozen when applied and was now half-melted, mostly around the edges, and still solid in the middle.

"Jeez, Clyde, don't eat that."

"Why not? It's butter and syrup, nothing's more delicious."

Craig sliced the tip off of a piece of breakfast sausage; it both smelled and tasted metallic, which hinted of sage. "The butter might be an improvement on the rest of the food, but, jeez."

"Jeez what, I can't do what I like?"

"It's just — who eats butter?"

"The Dutch do."

"Well, okay, when in Holland, I guess."

"The country is called 'the Netherlands.' Holland is just a region of the Netherlands." Clyde sniffed, setting his fork down. "I've never been there, but, my mom was Dutch. She was born here but my grandparents were actually from a town called Sneek — sounds like 'snake,' right, but it's spelled S-N-E-E-K. They were living in Amsterdam when the Nazis invaded and fled the country."

"Well," said Craig, "I knew the Nazis probably came into it _somewhere_, why not."

"You know what?" Clyde's voice sounded wobbly, like he might cry. "If you're going to make fun of my story you don't have to listen."

"I'll listen." Craig suddenly felt guilty, and was aware that he was naked. They both were. It felt wrong in light of the family history Clyde was about to reveal, but something — love or compassion or some gay shit like that — forced Craig to keep his mouth shut. "Please, continue."

"So they uh — my grandparents — were Dutch, and they raised my mother with some Dutch stuff, and I guess Dutch people eat this thing, sprinkles on bread, smeared with butter. You take the butter and you smear it on the bread, and it's got to be a thick layer so the sprinkles will stay on, okay, you should treat it like frosting, like you're frosting a cake. My parents went to the Netherlands once on a trip, when I was a kid, and they brought me back a box of it, the sprinkles — it had a funny name. It looked like little chocolate sprinkles, but it was better. So much better. Like if sprinkles were made from real chocolate. Anyway, sadly, we used that box up quickly, but it was such a nice thing because my mother made me buttered bread with sprinkles every morning for breakfast. Every morning when I came downstairs she was buttering a piece of bread for me. We had to use the shitty sprinkles from the grocery store, like Betty Crocker or whatever, you know. But she made the goddamn buttered bread with sprinkles for me literally every morning of my life, until she died."

Wishing he were a better person, or at least knew the right thing to say, Craig took a moment to gather his thoughts. "Look, I'm really sorry," was the best he managed.

"What are you sorry for? That my mother's dead, or that you made fun of me for eating butter?"

"That your mother's dead. I still think the butter thing is weird."

"Both would have been nice. But that's okay, I guess. Me too." Clyde's lips were slick and sticky when he pressed a kiss to Craig's cheek. He then, cautiously, ate the melted butter off the bottom of the plate with a spoon.


End file.
